Can the MA be fixed..?

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by hitech
Since we have made the split arena, every piece of data has been better.

# of deletes per month has been down.
# of new accounts has been up
% of players converting from free accounts to paying is substantial up.
average number of hours player per person is up.

Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!

Bottom line baby. Gotta love it


So is the current system perfect. Nope nothing is , always looking for ways to do it better.

Gotta hand it to HTC there. They are always looking for ways to make it better. Sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I dont.
Just as we all do.
Thing is, more often then not. You only tend hear about it when we dissagree to a move HTC has made

But to their credit HTC has o be by far the most customer oriented companies I've ever seen.
Unlike many companies they at least do at least listen to customer or in this case player concerns and try to address them.
And unlike other games such as our much mourned Airwarrior I rarely if ever see a "canned" arrogent excuse or responce to a problem or concern
Classic example "It must be a problem on your end" was one I used to frequently see in AW that was positively infuriating.

Here if it is a problem on your end you at least get a detailed reason as to why, and what might be done to fix it. And They are also willing to look at their end as well.

When I tell people that dont play about AH I also tell them about the company. I find I almost cant tell anyone about the game without also telling them about the company and community as well

Ive been here a few years now. and I know I've had my share of grumblings,rants and arguements with just about everyone here from HT to the newest members on the boards. some of them rather intence
But truth be known
Far as Im concerned HTC and the rest of the community here are second to none

Alot of companies can learn from HTC

But you might as well forget about the idea of going back, because it isn't going to happen. [/QUOTE]

Experience has taught me that when HT says this.
he usually means it LOL

[DREDIOCK]

BTW Hitech.

You can send that endorsement check to........

[detch01]

Sorry Kweassa, I just don't get what your going on about. I played AW for years on the same map and never got bored, but then I compete with the other people in the arenas, not the terrains. The game is much better now than it ever was in my experience. It's easier to find fights and the fights you find are more intense and tend to last longer. The application of a little off-center pressure is much more effective in shaping the battle. There is more spontaneous cooperation between players in the LWA's now than there ever was before in the game. And there is a sense of community growing in the arenas as people are getting to know one another. Maybe I don't have enough functioning synapses floating around in between my ear-holes to recognize it, but I just don't see what's broke.



Cheers,
asw

[Bruv119]

Yea Mec.  I will never partake in capturing TT bases.    

I just take amusement from the guys who come in and go wtf who captured TT!

They then proceed to re capture and then take it for themselves.  After a couple of hours new load of peeps come in  "wtf  who took TT"  repeat loop.

Any mercy missions designed to capture back 1 vbase is allowed  

[thndregg]

Kweassa. At least it was a constructive, well thought out post despite it being "long winded."

[NoBaddy]

Originally posted by detch01
I played AW for years on the same map and never got bored, but then I compete with the other people in the arenas, not the terrains.  

This is why I laugh every time I see another tread demanding new maps. In the 10+ years I played Air Warrior, there were never more than 2 maps available at one time in the MA's. In my time, there were never more than 6 maps for the MA's in total. To hear people complain about the maps simply floors me. Your point about playing against the people and not the map is spot on. What that says to me is that the problems lies with the players and not the game.

[DadRabit]

S!

i believe most of the concerns arising again are due to frustration of the same map for weeks on end.  seems there was a lull in complaints after the last change on the capture system.  now after more than a month of the same map, folks seemed to start getting aggravated again.  me included.  sure would be great ta see festerma or trinity every now an then.

S!

[BaldEagl]

I'm ok with most of the changes at this point but I'd still like to see the return of the big maps (in rotation with the small ones) with the current 90/40/40 rule, which, by the way, while still difficult, is far better that 100/50/50.

I checked into the Blue arena early last night and it was one of the new maps.  I wanted to take a bomber run but, there wasn't enough room on that map to even get a set of loaded Lancs to 20K much less the the room needed to stabalize speed and calibrate.  I veiw that as a fundamental flaw in at least that map.

I also disagree with the star wars ack at the fields.  While I used to fly in and try to drop a hanger with an attack plane I just stay away from enemy fields now.  

As I stated in another post recently, I used to spend up to half my time in vehicles, bombers, attack planes and fleets.  Now I spend 70-80% of my time furballing (that aspect used to be 10-15% of my time).

I used to care about base captures and winning the war.  Now I just log on knowing I'm going furballing and don't care about the rest.

As to the numbers imbalance, I spent most of last night in LW Orange (It's where my squaddies were).  Bish ruled LW Orange which, by late in the evening was becoming boring.  I went back to LW Blue to end the night and Bish had 2 fields.  I'm not sure anything can really be done about that.

Finally, I think the EW and MW arenas need to be combined to get the numbers up.  Maybe use the full EW plane-set with a shortened MW plane set.

The game as it is has caused fundamental shifts in gameplay.  I'm not sure yet if that's good or bad.  I know for me it's limited what I do and while my play-time hasn't decreased, I find myself bored more often.

Just my take on it.

[Laurie]

Originally posted by Bronk
Think this covered it.

 


Seriously, just let it go.


Bronk

dont believe i asked MA back anywhere,

just dont think FOUR arenas works in my opinoin,
never said you had to agree

[Simaril]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!

Bottom line baby. Gotta love it
.....

But remember that the best bottom line happens when the greatest number of people are having the greatest amount of fun. So, HT's business goal and our play goal very nicely coincide.

820 is an incredibly impressive number. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't explain that away by the season, or by advertising. To my casual eye, the MA numbers had stalled for a good while before. No matter what fun I had in the old MA, the OUTCOMES show that this system is more fun for more people.

HT has elsewhere said the team is working on a major overhaul of the strat system, and that will of necessity mean changes in the way the game plays -- and thus the way successful maps will need to be layed out. It's been nice to see new maps coming....but in the end, every design has its schwerpunkt, and hopefully its great combat zones. We'll learn them on the new, and we know them on the old. The game works fine in the meantime.

[NoBaddy]

Originally posted by Simaril

820 is an incredibly impressive number.

Just left and there were 860+ logged in. Makes me believe the MA might not need to be "fixed".

[bozon]

Kweassa, as it happens often, I agree with your general assesment of the situation (save some minor reservations). The decline of my favorite MWA finaly convinced me that what I view as fun is the view of a small minority. I really hoped this minority was a little bit bigger, enough to sustain itself on the fringes of the general AH comunity, but I was wrong. I tried to vote with my login button, but about 20 people, of which: 1/3 in GV, 1/3 score padding and 1/3 looking for one another spread over 3 fronts just doesn't cut it. Anyway, being able to login for so few hours doesn't make me counted. I gave up and joined the masses in LWA.

While the time frames split was a failure I think the lower caps and small maps is a significan't improvement. Not a real solution, but a real improvement.

Changes to the "win" conditions and the un-captureable fields are also great. I don't care as much about being outnumbered if I always have a field to take off from and am not rolled over by 2 countries.

A call for a massive re-design of the MA while HTC are already hard at work on something completely new (TOD) is poorly timed. I totaly agree that the game dosn't seem to be designed to include a massive detailed ground war, nor bomber formations, nor such large numbers. I see that HTC are trying easy-to-implement changes that will not interfere with TOD development too much. It's a stop-gap, but also the logical thing to do and it DOES improve things.

In the long run, unless TOD will absorb the entire game, such a call might be justified.

[Kweassa]

I can't help but feel there's something, or someway to better integrate it all. Call me an idealist, or call the idea utopian, but I don't think its impossible.

 Back in the days of AH1, everything worked well. Occasional complaints on "ganbanging" or "uneven sides", but never before were so many people so discontent with AH as now.

 I know some people will just say "the MA is fun for me as it is". I don't really want to rain down on their parade, but I think the concerns are mounting up to alarming levels with most everyone around. Besides, even if the MA is fun for some people I doubt those people really disagree that there can be something better.

 So maybe it is a "utopia" I'm thinking of - a place that doesn't exist. I'm thinking of a well layed out format of a MA equipped with logical components of strat system that can satsify BOTH the furball folk and the strat folk. Some place where we don't have to split everyone around into multiple arenas, but instead, all of the massive player base of AH can fly in an integrated, single arena.

 Ofcourse, like bozon said the timing is quite bad. HTC is currently working on ToD. But the problem is that the development of the ToD has been going on for such a long time with no information at all concerning its progress, that people are starting to wonder if perhaps HT just forgot about the MA. They are growing discontent with everything AH has to offer.

 The good ol' veterans are sad because they can't find any decents fights any more, strat fliers are angry because people just flock to a single place and completely abandon other areas of the map, furballers are bored because all they every get is either be a part of the horde and fight against hangars, or become a prey of the horde and fight against 20 to 1 odds in a vulched situation.

 The only people who are actually enjoying the MA seems to be the totalitarian "Borg" types who are single minded in their quest for victory and conquest of airfields and assimilation of enemy territories with least opposition as possible.

 Everytime I log on I am given a choice; we have two areas where we can fight. The first one is where we have full friendly darbars 3 sectors full with almost no enemy darbar at all, and the other is where we have full enemy darbars 3 sectos full with no friendly darbar at all. This is actually greatly discouraging for someone wanting to find a good fight, whether be it a part of a capture attempt, or just a plain ol' fighter sweep.

 I mean, I've been hearing that people just want fun fights.

 But it seems my definition of a "fun fight" is something which has opponents I can fight against, as compared to the definition of a "fun fight" for the Borg, which apparently seems to have to do nothing with opponents, but just expansion of the territories.

[Kazaa]

Originally posted by Bruv119
 Just seems some squads/country thinks its cool and clever to still up 30+ man missions just to capture one field.  When that use of force is applied to an extent of maybe outnumbering a whole country to take one airfield its pathetic.

Oi, we done one of those the other night, was great fun

Bring back the MA !!!

[hitech]

Had 954 people online in arenas last night, even with 1 arena and the old 750 cap what do you all want to do with the other 200 people?

HiTech