A very recent idea for me. I'm not sure if anyone has come up with this one.
I remember some people have suggested in the past that the "money" concept of the game should be applied to AH as well,
ie. every plane should be perked, and people should pay and "buy" each plane every time they up.
Now, the reasoning behind that suggestion was pretty obvious. It was a way to bring in some of the "fear factor" into the game so people don't fly their planes wrecklessly. I think it was an idea to stop the "gaming-the-game". Every lost plane, every death should have some kind of negative impact so the endless flow of respawning planes cannot be treated as a viable 'tactic'.
For example, imagine a well concealed vehicle in the woods, being attacked by a largely incompetent attack pilot. Now this guy can't hit the broad side of the barn with his ordnance. He's never practiced bombing or strafing, and all he does is up a plane, dump bombs, strafe dangerously, crash into the woods, and reup, repeat
ad nauseaum until some lucky drop finally lands near the vehicle and destroys it. The GV driver has taken a long time to drive and position himself carefully. He took the precautions, but one thing he couldn't beat was the limitless supply of planes and bombs. Nothing beats infinite resourcers.
Now, this idea was immensely unpopular. There were cons, and large ones too. If perks were required for every plane, only the best of pilots would ever be able to up the better planes. The hopeless will become more hopeless, the timid will become more timid.
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My idea is this:
1. What if all the planes had a price?
2. What if, the perk modifiers that effect the amount of perks earned, is applied on an individual basis rather than global? Specifically, what if the amount of perks earned, and the amount of perks required to "purchase" a certain plane, was modified by the statistics concerning his prowess as a fighter/bomber/GV pilot/driver?
The current formula for perks are:
1. plane perk cost = (plane cost) x (perk bonus)
2. perk points earned = (perks per kill) x (1 / (perk bonus))
3. perk bonus = 1 / (((country players) / (total players)) x 3)^2
4. perks per kill = (my ENY) / (target ENY)
Now, to make the math simple, let's assume #3 perk bonus = 1. All countries have totally equal numbers. Therefore,
1. plane perk cost = plane cost
2. perk points earned = perks per kill
4. perks per kill = (my ENY) / (target ENY)
Let's assume that I, "kweassa", am flying a La-7 with a ENY of (let's say) 5. I meet the enemy pilot, "badguy", who is flying a P-51D with a ENY of (let's say) 10.
* Now, under the current rules, if kweassa shoots badguy down he earns;
5/10 = 0.5 perks
* If the other way around, badguy earns;
10/5 = 2 perks
As stated in idea #1,
all planes now have a price. The La-7, a versatile late-war plane costs 2 perks, The P-51D, little lacking in pure engine power and speed, costs a little less price of 1 perks.
It appears "badguy" is a much better pilot than "kweassa", and for every 10 bouts kweassa loses 8, and wins only 2. badguy, on the other hand, wins 8 and loses only 2 per average. Let's assume this tendency applies exactly to both kweassa and badguy when they meet and fight each other.
kweassa will lose 8 fights and win only 2, vice versa for badguy. Therefore, kweassa earns 1 perks(2 victories in La-7 against P-51), and loses 16 perks(8 losses in La-7 against P-51). badguy earns 16 perks and loses only 1. Thus, the sucky pilot kweassa is severely penalized, as his balance is now -15, while badguy, a superior pilot is +15.
Clearly, this system will benefit only the better pilot.
...
However, there's a second premise. The calculations are now also influenced by the K/D ratio. (I've forgotten the formula, so here I'll assume that the K/D is {kills / (deaths +1)} )
* badguy is a superior pilot, with 8 kills, two deaths, K/D of 2.66.
* kweassa is a sucky pilot, with 2 kills, 8 deaths, K/D of 0.22.
Now, what if the calculation was like this?
1. plane perk cost = plane cost x (K/D)
2. perk points earned = perks perkill
4. perks per kill = (my ENY) / (target ENY)
5. ENY = (original ENY) / (K/D)
* For kweassa, the sucky pilot, his K/D is merely 0.22 average. Therefore, the La-7 he uses, normally costing 2 perks, is only 0.44 points for him.
* On the other hand, badguy, the superior pilot, has a 2.66 K/D. For him, the P-51D, normally costing only 1 perks, is 2.66 points to purchase.
* For kweassa, his La-7, originally with an ENY of 5, is modified to 22.7, because he sucks.
* For badguy, his P-51D, originally with an ENY of 10, is now 3.75, because he is a superior pilot.
Therefore, when kweassa and badguy duke it out 10 fights, kweassa losing 8, winning 2, the results would be very different now.
* perks kweassa earned for shooting down badguy
= 22.7/3.75 = 6.05
* perks badguy earned for shooting down kweassa
= 3.75/22.7 = 0.16
* total perks kweassa earned
= 6.05 x 2 victories = 12.1
* total perks kweassa lost
= 0.44 (La-7 cost) x 8 losses = 3.52
* total perks badguy earned
= 0.16 x 8 victories = 1.28
* total perks badguy lost
= 2.66 (P-51D cost) x 2 losses = 5.32
...
The end result: the vastly sucky kweassa, despite a much suckier skill, can "purchase" aircraft at a cheaper cost because he is sucky. Is hit less by losing planes, and earns more when he shoots down. On the other hand, the superior pilot badguy, is hit harder in perks by each defeat, costs more perks to buy planes than kweassa, and earns a lot less because he is much superior.
Now, I'm not saying the above formula is good. It's just a loose example. What I'm saying is, what if the K/D ratio effected most (if not all) of the categories in calculating perk costs: ENY, plane price, perks earned, etc etc..
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This is my explanation:
First, slap a price on everything the user can select in the game according to its performance/era, and let the pilots spend their perks each time they up a plane, arm it with extra guns, equip bombs, DTs, etc etc. Having to spend money to up a plane with more options, will act as a bit of a limiting factor in how the planes are treated.
For instance, unless a certain player is very perk rich, he wouldn't just mandatorily slap on DTs with less than 100% internal fuel. When he selects a certain plane, and equips it with a DT, he will pay for the plane itself, and the extra cost required to afford the DTs. Thus, wasting DTs is spending money unwisely, and therefore people will refrain from using DTs unless they have to.
Likewise, when someone ups an IL-2 to attack a ground vehicle, each time he loses a plane that is armed with rockets and bombs, he will be losing the perk price required to by the IL2 + perks for rockets + perks for bombs. He'd think twice before just going kamikaze against every GV he sees.
Overall, people will be spending a heckuva lot of perks than before. Everything comes with a price, so wise flying literally
pays. The reason to slapping a price on every piece of ordnance, every ride in the game, is simple. It is to make the people conscious about the amount of "money" they earn. When they get the feeling that they will be losing money if they die, they will fly more carefully.
However, if that continues, the skill-less pilots would become quickly bankrupt, while the skilled become endlessly rich, accumulating incredible amounts of perks. That is why the K/D is applied to each part of the equation. The sucky pilots will have it easier to earn a lot more perks than the super duper pilots.
As you can see in the above calculations, having a 0.22 K/D and losing 8 of 10 battles in a La-7 still earned him about 9 perks. On the other hand. badguy won 8 out of 10 fights but he still lost about 4 perks.
This second part of the idea, to incorporate the K/D factor into perk-related formulas, is a sort of a "handicap" system. Suckier pilots will be able to earn perks a lot more easily, and will be able to buy planes at cheap prices. However, the better the pilot becomes, it will be much more difficult to earn perks, and even the same planes would cost a lot more than when the sucky pilot was "purchasing" them. In other words, the better the pilot, the more price he has to pay.
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I'm not sure how much this makes sense, but I'm thinking it could be worth a shot.
