Fun Fights Extinct?

[Simaril]

"Good fights" depend a lot on the moves you use. I'm just learning to have fun playing in the mud, and I'll tell you its had a huge impact on how I enter fight zones. By using lag roll reversals and defensive maneuvers it's possible to turn the alt monkey's advantage against them...that higher energy translates into larger turn radii, and if they give up the energy its suddenly an even fight.

I'm finding the key to getting these fights is to not wade into the center of the furball (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Instead, approach the lateral edge of a furball (ie not in direct line between bases) at low to medium alt. When you spot a possible combatant, try to look like an inviting target and "escape" just fast enough to drag the attacker further away from the main group. If necessary, climbing makes you look more vulnerable and lets him get closer; most conservative attackers won't give up all their E for a target more than 5K below them. Generally works pretty well for getting a fight going, though my steenkin gunnery usually means I don't make quick work even when I win. Fun anyway.

[Hajo]

My "fun" so to speak is fighting at 20K or over.  Why you may ask.  I've been playing MMOG combat sims for a good while.  I like playing them for the virtual reality.  That's why I love scenarios.  But in the MA more and more fights are occurring not only at ground level but 15K and over.  Those are the ones I love.  That's where most fights occured during the European Air War during WWII.  It's an entirely different fight.
Not much air for those wings to grab......thus E management and speed are needed more then flat turning and looping at lower altitudes.  A lot of lag pursuit occurs and setting up occurs at further distances.  Get to slow and you're going to lose alt and be below your enemies who will then pounce on what is left of you.

So whatever your preference it's what makes the game fun for you that counts.

Don't let anyone tell you how to play.  Unless of course they are paying your subscription fee.  Then think about playing their way.

[mtnman]

Your desire to 'live' in a cartoon world, sounds an awful lot like what some of us see as flying 'safe'.

It's your dime so enjoy

Lol, you don't desire to win/succeed/live?  Then why complain when you don't get what you don't desire?  If you want to be ganged or picked , the best way I can think of to do that is to mosey in at 3-5k.  I won't call that foolish, as it's your buck to spend any way you want, but I would consider it foolish if you then complained about getting ganged or picked.  No desire to succeed?  Why play at all?  Go watch some TV...

What is it you guys want?  You talk of flying "safe" like it's a defective method, but whine because you get shot down flying like you want to get shot down?  It sounds like the low slow crowd wants to be seen as an elite brand of cartoon pilots, but with arguments like that it ain't ever gonna happen, lol.  You'll be seen as "slow" maybe, but never "elite", lol.  Or maybe we're taking this too seriously?  Maybe this isn't a real complaint, but more of a tongue in cheek, clown-like, jestful, "complaint" meant to draw attention and some chuckles?  An attempt at humor?

Slam the "cartoon" all you want, this is a game.  So is football, baseball, poker,pool, darts, whatever.  Ask around, see how many football players don't care whether they win or lose.  If they didn't care, they wouldn't play.  Players who don't want to play drag the game down

Without the higher alt fights, the low fights would get boring, as would the high alt fights without the low, or the furballing without the toolshedders, or the toolshedding without the furballing, or the gv'ing without the associated air war, etc, etc, etc...  All those facets together is what makes this game fun.  Without any one of them it would be significantly less enjoyable.

If we didn't feel that way, we wouldn't be here.  Or if we were, and really only wanted to see one facet of the game we'd all be hiding in various corners of the DA or TA.
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me at all if you don't care.  I'll simply pick you on my way to a decent fight.  I won't lose any sleep over it, and won't devote any more effort to it than it deserves.  But if you think I'm going to see this style of fighting in the MA as "elite" in any real sense, that won't happen until the whines stop.

The funny thing is that without the associated whines, I'd see it in a different light.  I'd see it as game players making conscious decisions, knowing the likely outcome of those decisions, and living happily with the results they knew were very probable.  Without the complaints, it looks honorable.  Start up with the complaints, and it looks foolish.

MtnMan

[Toad]

The obvious solution is to put 50K airstarts in the game.

Then we can all fly <cough> realistically <cough> without wasting so much time.

[mtnman]

Bah, we'd still waste the time, it would just be going downhill to the fight instead of uphill.

[GooseAW]

to the original poster...because I don't want to waste/take the time to read all the replies. Welcome to life man! You have to adjust as things change. If you decide to have fun, you will. If you want to complain, you'll find something to complain about. It sucks to be ganged by 10 dweebs in dweeb rides, with a 10k alt adv. But just imagine the buzz you'll feel when you manage to kill 6 of em and make it home alive!

In 13 years between here and AW I always manage to find a new reason to keep logging on and having fun with my squaddies and opponents. I have my bad nights and I do get ticked off on occasion. More often than not I sit in my cockpit/desk chair, and laugh my arse off at what goes on in this wonderful, dynamic community that we are all a part of. I have taken a few sabaticals from the game over the last few years when I found myself not having the fun I shoulld be having...but I keep coming back. So, if you're not having fun, look inward and stop slinging blame and whines. It doesn't help you or the community.

[Guppy35]

Lol, you don't desire to win/succeed/live?  Then why complain when you don't get what you don't desire?  If you want to be ganged or picked , the best way I can think of to do that is to mosey in at 3-5k.  I won't call that foolish, as it's your buck to spend any way you want, but I would consider it foolish if you then complained about getting ganged or picked.  No desire to succeed?  Why play at all?  Go watch some TV...


MtnMan

What I want is to have fun.  Same as you  If you note, I always say it's your dime.  Fly the way you have fun.

How you define winning in here and how I do, are clearly two different things.  I don't make a living here, I'm not fighting to protect a cause, or to protect my family.  I gain no status by playing the game.  I just do what I can to have fun.

With the time I get to fly I don't want to spend it climbing to high alt, drifting for a few sectors, hoping for someone to pass below me so I can 'kill' them.  The challenge for me is to get into the fight and hopefully win every one of them.  Going into a crowd makes this tough, but it's what's there so since i don't die, that's what I do.

I know where the mindset comes from for me too.  It goes back to the wartime Spit XII drivers.  Their tactics were to essentially dangle themselves below the 109s and tease them into coming down.  They'd break into them and have at it.

I've been doing it that way since Airwarrior.

Again, it's your dime, you have fun your way

Oh, and btw I didn't complain.  My response to the original post was I'm still having fun and good fights can be found

[DEAR98]

Um a few ago, the new thing is "alt monkies" and "thousand plane chasers."

[Toad]

Bah, we'd still waste the time, it would just be going downhill to the fight instead of uphill.

We'd save the 20 minute climb time though. 

[j500ss]

I flew the MA yesterday afternoon, first time in there in about a month. Yes I am what most all of you would consider a NOOB! I'm not happy about that but, it is what it is. I did find it interesting that most, not all, but most I flew with were up 3-4 times in the same time frame I was in the same plane. Alot obviously seem not to care wether the die or not, go zooming in, do what damage they can, flying a straight line the whole time, just to have someone roll in on them and shoot them down. They really made no effort whatsoever to try and outrun or out manuver the plane on their 6.

I flew raids on 2 different airfields, in a spit8. I got a kill on the first one and then landed where I took off from. (low gas) Took off again for the same field and got into it with a 109 and then a yak got into the mix and hit me good enough to smoke. Made it most of the way back to my field but had to bail as the engine gave out (oil ). Then it was on to a new attack and went in from around 8k with another plane. we got into it with some spits and 109's, I found that a 109 was crossing about 1k under me so I rolled on him and got him. Then the sky was full of my team so I headed home due to gas again and landed.

Point is I found myself WANTING to live and return to base alive, to me it seems like the right thing to want to do, game or not. But there are plenty who could seem to care less about that thats where you lose the quality pilots and fighting you once had.

mtnman: I personally could not agree more with ya    

[Guppy35]

Bah, we'd still waste the time, it would just be going downhill to the fight instead of uphill.

Just for giggles I checked our scores.  We've flown about the same hours and have about the same kills.  I have a lot more deaths.  We have the same kills per hour as well.

90 percent of your kills are in an F4U4
90 percent of mine are in a P38G

We clearly have our fun in different ways

[Simaril]

j500s --

I think the real message is that you have to fly the way that you have fun. Nothing else matters. I know guys whose secret ambition is to fly an entire tour without dying, to be as serious about landing as pilots were in WW2. (The guy I'm thinking about isn't afraid to fight, not a runner at all. And no, he's not a squaddie.) Some of the most skilled ACM guys I've seen love nothing better than twisting and turning when surrounded by an impossible number of enemies, and will have a blast even if they eventually get shredded by an unskilled newb right off the runway. (Course, with some of those skilled guys they end up destroying the horde by themselves...I remember a film of a couple old time BKs on the deck getting jumped by 6-8 bad guys, killing them all and flying home giggling.)

Up till recently I flat out hated dying. Now I'm learning to have fun no matter how the sortie ends, and I'm pushing into "un-smart" situations just to try new things out. I've had more fun, and much less frustration, because no matter how good you are you're going to die in AH, probably every single night.

[PFactorDave]

Personally, I really enjoy the fights down on the deck.  It's down low and slow that I think somebody who really knows how to get the most of his ride really shines.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the guys who like coming in with altitude and using the legitimate BnZ tactics.  I also am smart enough to realize that getting kills that way isn't really as easy as a lot of folks might have you believe.

My problem is with the group of alt monkeys who loiter above waiting for two pilots to engage so they can swoop down and pick one.  They won't come down otherwise even though they have an E advantage.

Yesterday, I was in an area, down low and slow, five alt monkeys hovering overhead.  None of them wanted to be the first to come down.  They would circle overhead, as if they were waiting for my solo self to come u pto them!  Well that wasn't going to happen.  I'm still pretty noobish, but smart enough to know that I am better on the deck then at alt.

So they would circle and circle.  Occaisionally one would come down a bit, as soon as I turned to merge with him, I could see the rest of them making there moves to pounce as soon as I engaged.  So, I would manuever to deny any of them a good approach and they would all just return to their circling until another one of them would get up the nerve to come down, so the others could try and pick.

This went on for a good 10 minutes until I bingoed on fuel and just landed in the field.

The sad part is that if they had simply all come down together, one of them would have quite easily gotten me.  Quite easily.

There is definitely a difference between those who want the enjoyment of the fight and those who are simply out to score.

Whatever floats your boat I guess

[NoBaddy]

No one is guaranteed anything. Some days...the fights will be awesome. On others...there might be a dearth of fun. In the end, it really is all up to you. If you aren't having fun doing what you are doing....DO SOMETHING ELSE!!

On another note...

There is a great difference between not caring about winning or losing and lacking the desire to win. I always fight to win. However, that doesn't negate the fun I have even when I lose a good fight.

[Simaril]

There is a great difference between not caring about winning or losing and lacking the desire to win. I always fight to win. However, that doesn't negate the fun I have even when I lose a good fight.

Quoted for truth