Changes to come.

[Donzo]

Originally posted by President
the alternative is no choice, you are forced to go to the lower country

so....

Hi tech could 1) leave it all imbalanced cause you narfs cant balance the sides yourselves, and that includes ME since im a player too
2) give you choices, like he is doing
3) force you to change to the lower country  which would suck

SO WHAT IS YOUR POINT AGAIN MY FRIEND?  or do you still nto get it?

My POINT was that the "choice" to wait is not the same value as the choice to switch.

And here in Narfdom we Narfs are curious as to where you got your 1,2,3 list.

As seen here:

Originally posted by hitech
Currently having 2 different thoughts.

1 Go back to my original idea of having a wait time between flights based on country balance. This would put the same numbers in the air at one time.

2. Write the cant fly in this arena unless you changes sides.

3. Say screw it, turn off ENY and let everyone complain.

I don't see your #3.  Improv?


Let me add that I have never once given any thought to being out numbered.  I guess people are just different.  I always looked at being on the short end of the stick number-wise to be a challenge.

[Brooke]

Overall, it seems the greatest difficulty is that balancing sides and allowing people to fly with their squads are goals that pull in opposite directions.

That's why I liked the ENY system, only strengthened and allowed to go farther.  The first ENY experiment didn't result in people switching sides to balance the sides.  I think that is because the ENY limit didn't go far enough.  People were mostly willing to stay with higher ENY planes than switch.  They could still get some good planes, even by late-war standards.

The current system -- forcing a switch or a wait -- is sort of the extreme of what would happen if the ENY system were allowed to raise the ENY limit to 0 (where no planes are available).

I think an ENY-based system that allowed the ENY limit to keep being lowered, even all the way to 0, would provide a graded response that would give at its limit something equivalent to the current system, but it would allow those with very strong preference for staying in on the current side no matter what a way to achieve that.

Also, when one side has nothing but 1940's vintage aircraft available, a bit of side imbalance can be tolerated.  It could be set up so that, at more extreme ENY limits, a side has only A6M2's, Hurri I's, P-40's, etc. -- no F4U-1's, etc.

If an ENY-based system that is allowed to go all the way to zero is not done, though, I think the current system would result in a bit more flexibility if it allowed for volunteers to be the first picked for switching.

[Excaliber]

Originally posted by Rolex
All HTC is trying to do is make the game fair. I don't think it's fair to throw darts at them for trying to do that. Fairness starts with relatively even numbers of players per side. Two things that muck up the works are squads and countries.

I think it's reasonable to say that most people who join squads do so to fly with them, and most people fly for a country because of familiarity with the other players or some perceived personality of that country.

HTC is trying to shuffle the deck to make the numbers more fair. If the numbers are more fair and the deck is shuffled, you have to play the hand your dealt, just like any game.

I wonder if shuffling the deck using squads as part of the algorithm, instead of them suffering the consequences of the shuffling would work?

The number of active members of a squad is known and also general patterns of their activity, including days and time blocks of that activity. If squads are then categorized by activity (>15 active members during time block A, 10-14 active in time block A, 5-9 active in time block A, etc.) you could probably come up with a pretty good way of assigning squads to a country for week and have the number be fairly even.

What I'm saying is to shuffle the deck with that data once per week. Squads would fly with each other in a country for that week, no changing. Dynamic filling of an arena to further even out sides would be done with people not assigned to a squad. A rolling history and data set could be carried over and country assignment of squads could be self correcting.

Since the entire nature of a "country" is changing from week to week as the deck is shuffled, the "country" loyalty issue goes away. If the sides were even, within a  reasonable deviation, no capture or ENY system would be necessary, and I suppose that is the goal of HTC and the players.

Anyway, just an idea.

It's more like they are patronizing the elitist.  The good of the few over the many thing.

[Stiletto]

Originally posted by NoBaddy

Stil...

First, HIYA..din't know you were still around.

The problem with your statement is that all too often, the only opportunity people have is to "fight the horde" or simply avoid it. Some of the changes were made to try and promote combat...which, after all, is supposed to be the point of the game.

The changes have nothing to do with hardware. They are about the overall gaming environment. HT felt is was not conducive to keeping new players in the game. [/B]

Hey NB,

I'm still here. Some of the original Damned who became Tigers are still flying together. Maybe this is the crux of the matter: Some of the changes were made to try and promote combat...which, after all, is supposed to be the point of the game.

I've never seen a single one of my squaddies log on, look at the war, see that our country is under massive attack, and then log out of disgust. We have always played the hand we were dealt. That is war - sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. Some people might say that this isn't war, that it's a game, but it's supposed to be a combat simulation - not an arcade game. As a good sim does, it never artificially managed numbers to make things even. Hell, that was one of the things I liked about it - you never knew when you logged on if it was your country's turn to be overrun, or if it was your turn to do the smack-down. It made it interesting. There were times when a small number of us were able to turn the tide of battle, and out last the horde until it ran out of steam. That makes for an awesome evening, don't you agree?

But you also say the decision was about a feeling HT had about numbers. Not saying gut feelings are bad - just not a very good basis upon which to make business decisions. But if what you mean is that he looked at the numbers, ran some exit polls of people who quit to find out why they left, surveyed existing customers to see what they wanted, and made decisions accordingly, then that's a different ballgame. Is that what happened?

How bad was the horde problem, actually? Honestly, NB, was AH hemorrhaging players because of the way the old MA was set up, or have the numbers been decreasing since the splitting up of the arenas? (I don't know the answer to this question - just asking.)



Stil

[KTM520guy]

So, are any changes going to happen? I thought today was the big day. Maybe Hitech just wants to watch us squirm?

[Kev367th]

Originally posted by NoBaddy
Kev...

There was nothing 'sudden' about the changes. HT has know there were problems for a long time....he simply hasn't had the time to deal with them until now.

1) The old MA very, very, rarely (apart from close to reset, RJOs') got as unbalanced as the rolling cap arenas.
Thats our fault?
We didn't change the arenas.

2) More choice - How anyone would even think we have 'more choice' now is beyond me.

3) Time to deal - Nope and I guess he hasn't got time to deal with the bugs that are STILL around from AH1. Warpy buffs, gear appearing down in missions etc.

Sorry, all these changes have been necessitated by the original premise "the MA was broke".
Sooner or later you reach a point were you realise it's not worth the time trying to force people into a certain gamestyle.

Were they are lucky is that there isn't another game of this type even close to it out there, so you either like it or lump it.
Whats going to happen if one of the 'big boys' decides to get in on it and gives a viable alternative?

[RedTop]

Originally posted by NoBaddy
The problem with your statement is that all too often, the only opportunity people have is to "fight the horde" or simply avoid it. Some of the changes were made to try and promote combat...which, after all, is supposed to be the point of the game.

 

You want that kind of 1 or 2 vs 1 or 2...go to the DA. HT was nice enuogh to make one of those.

[NoBaddy]

Originally posted by Stiletto

I've never seen a single one of my squaddies log on, look at the war, see that our country is under massive attack, and then log out of disgust. We have always played the hand we were dealt. That is war - sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. Some people might say that this isn't war, that it's a game, but it's supposed to be a combat simulation - not an arcade game. As a good sim does, it never artificially managed numbers to make things even. Hell, that was one of the things I liked about it - you never knew when you logged on if it was your country's turn to be overrun, or if it was your turn to do the smack-down. It made it interesting. There were times when a small number of us were able to turn the tide of battle, and out last the horde until it ran out of steam. That makes for an awesome evening, don't you agree?

Sure I agree. The problem arises when the same people are continually fighting against the odds. As you stated, most don't log off, they simply avoid the odds (hence, they avoid combat).

Originally posted by Stiletto

But you also say the decision was about a feeling HT had about numbers. Not saying gut feelings are bad - just not a very good basis upon which to make business decisions. But if what you mean is that he looked at the numbers, ran some exit polls of people who quit to find out why they left, surveyed existing customers to see what they wanted, and made decisions accordingly, then that's a different ballgame. Is that what happened?

 
You misunderstood. HT doesn't have to go on 'gut feelings' where the numbers are concerned.

Originally posted by Stiletto

How bad was the horde problem, actually? Honestly, NB, was AH hemorrhaging players because of the way the old MA was set up, or have the numbers been decreasing since the splitting up of the arenas? (I don't know the answer to this question - just asking.)

Stil

The change from the large MA wasn't about 'hordes'. It was about a poor environment for retention of new customers. HT is convinced (note, I didn't use "feels" ) that very large single arena we had isn't good for the growth of his business. The last time I asked (about a month ago) the arena usage numbers were up slightly.

Stil...

You've been around. Give the changes a chance to settle in. You never know, strange as it may sound, HT might actually know what he is doing.

[NoBaddy]

Originally posted by Kev367th
1) The old MA very, very, rarely (apart from close to reset, RJOs') got as unbalanced as the rolling cap arenas.
Thats our fault?
We didn't change the arenas.

2) More choice - How anyone would even think we have 'more choice' now is beyond me.

3) Time to deal - Nope and I guess he hasn't got time to deal with the bugs that are STILL around from AH1. Warpy buffs, gear appearing down in missions etc.

Sorry, all these changes have been necessitated by the original premise "the MA was broke".
Sooner or later you reach a point were you realise it's not worth the time trying to force people into a certain gamestyle.

Were they are lucky is that there isn't another game of this type even close to it out there, so you either like it or lump it.
Whats going to happen if one of the 'big boys' decides to get in on it and gives a viable alternative?

Kev...

One of us seems to have a problem reading what I wrote to you. I merely pointed out that your statement that the changes were "suddenly" made was incorrect. But, for Heaven's sake, don't let facts stand in the way of your rant!!

Redtop...

You obviously are also suffering from some sort of reading comprehension problem.

[Stiletto]

Originally posted by NoBaddy
Sure I agree. The problem arises when the same people are continually fighting against the odds. As you stated, most don't log off, they simply avoid the odds (hence, they avoid combat).

Hey NB, I'm probably dense, but what do you mean? That people logged on and sat in the tower, rather than fight?
 

You misunderstood. HT doesn't have to go on 'gut feelings' where the numbers are concerned.

How do you mean? You can look at numbers, but how do you know why people are quitting, without asking them? How do you know what your loyal customers want, without asking them?
 

The change from the large MA wasn't about 'hordes'. It was about a poor environment for retention of new customers. HT is convinced (note, I didn't use "feels" ) that very large single arena we had isn't good for the growth of his business.

Can you explain what "poor environment" means? I thought the massively multi-player environment was what made the sim awesome.

The last time I asked (about a month ago) the arena usage numbers were up slightly.

Well, that's good.

Stil...

You've been around. Give the changes a chance to settle in. You never know, strange as it may sound, HT might actually know what he is doing.

My hat's off to HT, NB. He's made this business model work, so he must be doing something right. But that isn't what we're discussing, is it? We're talking about keeping players that we have and adding new ones. That's my problem. I have squaddies in two different squads wanting to go elsewhere, and I'm trying to keep us together. I'm not hearing any encouraging prospective moves to take back with me. Help me out, bro. How does the new plan support squads?

[pluck]

well at least a lot of people on tonight checking it out, counted over 700, not bad.  263 in one arena, 348 in another, plus around 75 in midwar.

[RedTop]

Originally posted by NoBaddy
Redtop...

You obviously are also suffering from some sort of reading comprehension problem.

My reading comprehension is fine thanks.

[Overlag]

See Rules #5, #4

[Killjoy2]

This BBS is sounding a lot like the WB's BBS before HiTech left.

[4510]

Originally posted by Donzo
What would be the negative effects of putting things back the way they were?

Ah.. there isn't enough crow in the frozen food sections of Safeway, Frys, Food Giant, etc. to fill plates that will need to be eaten?