A Behavioural approach to AvA maps...

[sparow]

Hi all,

I would like to point out a few observations on the general gaming behaviour of our fellow "pilots" in the last months, between 22:00 and 24:00 GMT (Winter Time):

1 - low "air traffic" wich has the terrible effect of having to look hard for a fight and try to balance sides to make it fair;
2 - concentration of players in two, three or four airfields, close together, abandoning the rest of the arena;
3 - no organised missions whatsoever;
4 - no purpose in flying bombers or much need to drive GVs;
5 - total absence of firld capture actions;
6 - unappropriate use of killshooter to artificially boost scores and rankings;
7 - excessive search of cover in friendly ack range;

In view of these points, I would suggest:

A - use maps with only 4 active airfields, 2 close and 2 distant airbases to each side only, uncapturable;
B - keep killshooter on all the time;
C - allow other fields for emergency landing purposes only, uncapturable and ack-less; also unable to spawn aircraft;

Flame proof vest on, ready to debate.

Thank you for your input,

Sparrow
249 Sqn RAF "Gold Coast"

[kilz]

3 - no organised missions whatsoever

the arena is not ment for missions whatsoever

4 - no purpose in flying bombers or much need to drive GVs

no not really but we try to keep it historical as much as posible

5 - total absence of firld capture actions;

bases are not ment to be captured. this arena is not here for base taking you want the head to the ma. the AvA is not like the MA and never will

6 - unappropriate use of killshooter to artificially boost scores and rankings;

couldnt agree with you more there

7 - excessive search of cover in friendly ack range;

then dont follow them into the ack


A - use maps with only 4 active airfields, 2 close and 2 distant airbases to each side only, uncapturable;

when a map is made all bases are made to be capturable there is not ands ifs or buts it has to its HTC's rules. and on the current map Troops and not aloud to be upped they are disabled no M3s and no C47s are enabled. so all bases right now are uncapturable

B - keep killshooter on all the time;

again i agree 100% here

allow other fields for emergency landing purposes only, uncapturable and ack-less; also unable to spawn aircraft;

if we had ack-less bases we whould have vulchers so no sorry i dont ever see an ack-less base

[KONG1]

AvA is simple:

(1)Grab a Plane

(2)Head for other planes

(3)Shoot at planes

(4)they will shoot back

(5)life is good

[Serenity]

Originally posted by sparow

4 - no purpose in flying bombers or much need to drive GVs;

I would KILL to be meant to fly bombers. You just give us no target. The current setup, the Tirpitz, has ALL hard targets set to require 125,000lb of bombs. Thats not easy. Give me a target and I will bomb it.

[storch]

Originally posted by Serenity
I would KILL to be meant to fly bombers. You just give us no target. The current setup, the Tirpitz, has ALL hard targets set to require 125,000lb of bombs. Thats not easy. Give me a target and I will bomb it.

the raf tried unsuccessfully to hit the tirpitz many times.  the hardness of the target in this set up accurately represents the difficulty.  If I were a bomb guy just hitting the target would be called a successful strike.  I think duke and the staff have done a fine job with the set up and with being prompt in maintaining it.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Serenity
I would KILL to be meant to fly bombers. You just give us no target. The current setup, the Tirpitz, has ALL hard targets set to require 125,000lb of bombs. Thats not easy. Give me a target and I will bomb it.

Heh.  It's not supposed to be easy!  The first time this setup ran, Filth organized a nice Lanc mission that sank the Tirpitz.  It can be done, and it gives the bomber folks a good reason to organize something.

AvA almost always allows for base capture.  (This setup really doesn't call for it.)  Unlike the MAs, though, there's no reward for capturing the map - in fact, doing so will pork the whole arena.  Rather, the "goal" of AvA, if that's what someone is looking for, is to create and enjoy good fights.  

Still, over the years we've seen some really good fights develop from attempted base captures.

- oldman

[Sweet2th]

Originally posted by sparow

3 - no organised missions whatever

We used to run missions in the AvA, a few years ago we would have over 100 players in the arena on a thursday night at 10:30 & we would run non stop missions against one another.


Wish those days were here again.

[sparow]

Good evening gentlemen.

Thank you for replying. In fact, the point I was trying to prove here was this:

- the actual AvA having not having enough numbers online - at least in my time zone - to run missions or major bombing raids, there is no point in setting up huge arenas with a multitude of unused airfields. AvA maps are the best I know, but we don't need 20 airfields to each side. We need 4, maximum. Two far away from each other and two closer together. In carrier maps, say CV in lieu of airfield...

- I agree with the non-capture concept in AvA.

- I am leaning towards killshooter allways on for now.

- I have expressed previously my opinion about this "Tirpitz" map, and I still find it pointless in AvA, creating only a "flak fleet" between enemy airfields, more ack to hug, a couple of miles away from the airfield ack, so convenient for helpless 190's with a Spit 8 in their sixes waiting for 109's to replane.

- To avoid having to build new maps, the actual ones could be used, but all but 4 would have only GV's (and no M3, troops or C47).


Let's be honest: airfields were far apart in RL. We must keep them close in AH, but at least 2 of them should be at a distance that allowed combat to happen half-way between the fields. That only with a full tank and - in some scenarios- a drop tank, would be theoretically possible to do all the trip to the enemy airfield, fight and return safely to base.

That would have two great advantages: one, would make vulching virtually impossible. Second, would allow a downed pilot to take-off and get some altitude before engaging in combat again.

With the vulching limited, due to fuel issues and replaning back to the fight running at a slower pace, would contribute to many sucessfull disengagements because of need to re-arm or re-fuel.

This could also have another advantage: less ack-hugging when defending in numeric inferiority. There would be no need for that.

Well my 2x2 arena idea may look crazy, but hey! Maybe it worked! Call it "Action Funneling" or "Combat Duct" or "Spitfire Alley", you name it!

[detch01]

I'd like to see less experimentation with settings in the AvA. Particularly kill shooter, but also including icon, object hardness and aaa lethality settings. The constant experimentation was one of the factors in me losing interest in the arena several years ago. I still occasionally pop into the arena if there's a setup that's of particular interest to me but the 200 chatter tends to turn me off - there's less of that kind of crap in the MA's these days.
  If you want to increase the population in the AvA you need to standardize the settings (preferably at the MA levels for the above) and leave them there. Leave the screwing around with the settings to achieve a specific experience to special events where players expect it. You'll get better attendance once the general population figures out they don't have to adjust their game play to have some fun in the AvA. And then get over the idea that the AvA is special where ho's and vulching is something to complain about. It happens. Learn to live with it or at the very least resist the urge to piss and moan about it on ch200.
  As for limiting the number of fields in use, well, if you intend on pulling in just the furballers then yeah, that will work as well as anything else, but if your interested in pulling in all types of players then limiting the game play won't work. If you limit a setup to 4 fields, I'm pretty sure it won't take long for the setup to be hosting NOE bomber formations, running in to bomb the hangars and either auggering or getting nailed by ack (rinse & repeat ad nauseum).

  BTW I liked the idea of the Tirpitz setup - it has great potential for creating some memorable fights but when I saw kill shooter was off I had no interest in playing the AvA. Upping the hardness of the fleets just put the nail in the coffin for me showing up at all while this setup is running.

my two cents.


asw

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by detch01
but when I saw kill shooter was off I had no interest in playing the AvA.

Just out of interest, asw, why?  Unlike AW, we have not been plagued by fraggers, and KS-off does have a noticeable effect on ganging.

- oldman (who was himself very skeptical of KS-off, but is now a believer)

[detch01]

Originally posted by Oldman731
Just out of interest, asw, why?  Unlike AW, we have not been plagued by fraggers, and KS-off does have a noticeable effect on ganging.

- oldman (who was himself very skeptical of KS-off, but is now a believer)

  If there was an automatic penalty, similar to AW's PNG status, or even a mod on with the will and the teeth to fix a player problem, then I'd be for leaving kill shooter off because it does raise the intensity of the game a bit. But as neither method of correction is available all that can be done is either live with it happening or try to fix it myself when it does. I've got zero interest in either an ffa atmosphere or being an arena policeman when I go into the AvA. All I see happening in the AvA with kill-shooter off is the same types who tried to turn the DA into an ffa arena infesting the AvA over time. And as time goes by the problem will get worse, especially if the population grows.

  Remembering AW. We did have a few incidents of fragging going on but the PNG system seemed to work well enough so that I don't remember it being a constant problem when I played - although we also had visible mods with teeth running around during the gamestorm years and that IMO was much more effective than the inviso-mods in the MA's (which is a whole nuther topic and a taboo one as well IIRC). I do remember that being able to frag had no affect on ganging in AW though - once players figured out how & when to shoot to avoid starting the PNG count ganging wasn't a problem for them (or me on occasion ). To be honest though, the last couple of years in AW I was either in the AvA or FR BigPac so I can't really say much about the RR ETO's during EA's (may they die of crotch rot) ownership of the game.


Cheers,
asw