Originally posted by SlapShot
I know you said ... "and this is NOT a dig at anyone" ... but I can't help but to respond because the "meat" of the above references the post that I made.
Looking back at the posts, I see your point. I apologize for giving the appearance I was singling you out. I had no intention of making reference to you or any one person; nor, trying to insult anyone as a group.
I do agree with your statement as well regarding the way some offers to help are received. I would not continually invite someone to question my parental lineage either.
I read numerous posts, to include other threads, where folks were re-hashing how they stomped one player or another over and over. Then come to the boards and complain when the 'newb' Ram-tard-HOs. I merely point out that to some, that is their ONLY means of scoring. Maybe they are not taking to the time to understand the full bigger picture; but, can you blame them for at least wanting to taste a hint of victory once in a while?
I still recall my first experiences in AH, it was very frustrating. I wish that someone would have taken me to the side and taught some of the ACMs (in fact, I still do -- there are people who can make their toon-planes do unfathomable things.)
This is what I remember of the AH early months:
- Try to up... drive left off the runway, hit ack gun and crash.
- Try to up some more .. Learned to use rudder to keep plane straight, get vulched on runway.
- Finally up a different base, get in the air.... first contact, blaze away from 2.0K out, can't figure why those basstages aren't dying.
- Fly closer but now out of ammo... bad guy does a loop and smokes my hindparts.
- Finally, someone is kind enough to trust me with the game's secret... Speed is life.
- Up the Uber fast plane (wannabe Jet-Jock)... still dying, but hit the ground at higher speed.
- Secret two... Alt and speed are E and E is life. * ding, ding ding * FLY HIGHER! wooo whoooo, I am hot now... Lets get some kills.
- Fly in from 15K, line up for a pick.... compress and auger.
- Try again.... overshoot and take cannons up the wazoo.
- Start working on diving in at light speed, fly up the rear of bad guy and fire off burst.... overshoot due to barrell roll manuver, don't hit chit, and take MG fire up the wazoo.
(Note: Can you see the frustration building?)
- Get ticked off, cuss on 200 ... get muted.
- Realize speed and alt aren't the life that everyone keeps claiming ... pick new uber plane with cannon and learn to HO.
- Begin trying to learn ACM, get out turned and out-fought by a pregnant elephant. ... Next lesson, flaps. Use flaps to turn.
- Learned that flaps are important.... Realized that no one explained when to engage and disengage flaps to make plane do uber stuff.... continue to get killed by someone dogfighting in their Lancs.
- Grab uber cannon bird and revert to only tactic that worked, HO... land a 2 kill sortie -- get cocky.
- Shining on success of HO, grab a 110 and HO some more.
- Finally getting kills ... join a GHI mission and learn the tactic of "vooolch"
- Realize, horde works, fly in groups of 30 or more ... get cherry picked for not paying attention above me.
My point is this... are we perpetuating that which we despise by only sharing bits and pieces of knowledge? Are we actually creating the HO-misers by continuing to kick them into the dirt when they try to fly?
Imagine the frustration when you finally learn that Alt is life only to find out (after climbing around the moon) that you are still going to get smoked. Someone must have lied!!! Well, not really, they just didn't share everything. Same goes with flaps, speed, rope maneuvers, etc... By only sharing a piece of the knowledge, newbs still get killed and get frustrated. They resort to the fastest cannon bird they can afford to fly.
As for me... I still have a lot to learn and would love to be able to analyze situations. I get beat and would love to be able to go back and learn from the encounter. However, I do not have the skills (or haven't been taught) how to understand and analyze how I lost the encounter. I can watch the film and see I lost, but I don't see how I was beaten.
Anyway... just my thoughts for conversation. And again, I apologize Slapshot for appearing to single you out.
