Second Night Reflections

[Damionte]

Good idea Hammer.

I've been avoiding posting on some of the subjects as I wasn't sure how to say what I wanted to say without it coing off as a knock against someone else.

I'll just simply state what I am looking for in the game.

I am a strat guy. Winning the war is what I am concerned about. I hope that the other guy is also concerned about winning the war. So when I go out to attack his base I expect him to defend it. I attack the bases that have the most strategic worth to me. I am not at all concerned with the dogfight itself. The dogfight for me is just a side effect of winning the war. I dogfight when I need to, and when I don't need to dogfight I don't. To put it simply the dogfight fight is just a means to an end.

The real fight for me is the overall fight involved in winning the war. I am not concerned about the outcomes of the individual battles. The individual dogfights that pop up. I am only interested in what that battle, what that dog fight accomplished.

The current map works ok for me. It's smaller which keeps the fighting in one general area. The big maps turn into milk running which is not what I am after. Though I'll take it when I can get it. If anything the job of a strat guy is to create a milk run. I am all about creating mis matches that can be exploited. It's the other guys job to figure out how to do the same with what he's got to make me fight on his terms.

[crockett]

In regards to the bunches of spit5's, one word.....C202, its more than a match for the spit flight wise, the weak guns make it a problem in a furball, just cut a spit out of the herd 

shamus

It's not just the spitfires.. it's the fact its 4 or 5 cons at a time constantally. In a 1 on 1 yea a C202 or even a 109E is a pretty good match for the Spit 5, the problem is it's always a bunch of cons not just the one. You can't cut guys out of the herd, I've tried several times and it never fails the con will either run back to his pack, or the pack will come to the fight I tried to pull away from it.

[Krusty]

I joined once (Tuesday I think) and flew a couple of sorties...

I found it lame in the extreme. It was already so lop-sided in the axis favors, roster-wise, that I offered to switch to allies, being the most recent to join. The end result was a long stream of PERFECTLY placed squaddies on the axis side, spaced so that each one is outside icon range of the other from the enemy perspective (3k Icon range, remember?) and that any time any one of them makes a pass on the enemy, the one behind them is in perfect "pick" position and the one behind them, and the one behind them.

They were almost perfectly lined up like Rockettes, and I even noted this to somebody else at the time. The lead was following my dot, the others were following it (i.e. the line of dots on the map was chasing each other, not me).

On top of that, Tbarone's gimmicky game-the-game exploit of flying a 109E with less than 25% fuel, he was more than able to out turn my hurr1 with full flaps at 60mph on the deck, despite his wingman constantly peppering me from alt. I had about 25% by the time this happened. Both of them came in 15k and bounced me (again in the Rockette fashion I described above) at about 10k, and I took them all the way to the deck.

Thanks, but no thanks.

You can have that kinda crappy gameplay. I don't care so much if it's strat, furballing, I LOVE the planesets, but honestly the #1 thing that drives me away repeatedly is the lame behavior.

What I want from the AvA? What I want is less squad-based gang banging that Hammer noted. It's almost all I see anytime in the past year or so. I want to bounce a con once in a while, or get bounced, and I'm not looking for a 1v1, but I (like Hammer) want a fricking fighting chance.

[Motherland]

Sure that wasn't Monday night, before the war started? The Axis planeset is much less advantageous now.

[VonMessa]

All I want is some sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads. 

[007Rusty]

                                     
                 

All I want is some sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads. 

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[a4944]

I've been very much enjoying it.  I look forward to playing AHII again.  The numbers were over 50 last night and I have not see that in a very long time, especially with early war planes.  The numbers were pretty equal up to 9:45 Est when I logged.  Long live "The Bug Wars"!

Venom

[TheBug]

Hmmm... lot's of things to ponder there.

Regarding a different objective for the war other than capturing a base.  I for one can't think of one that will work.  We are limited to the maps we have, created by players like you, so although they are quite willing to work with us on some regards.  It would be a bit much to ask them to restructure the maps to fit our AvA war.  To achieve this someone would have to create one specifically to do this.   Even if this was to be done, you would then base the war upon factors that must be hand tallied by someone.  I am all for developing the war that will work, but need to hear more concrete idea and strive to keep them automated within the game.

But my observations on the war aspect of this setup is that people don't seem interested.  The one big major complaint I'm hearing is the close proximity of the Spit V base to the front and the distance that the Axis must fly the 109f to the fight.  But even with this air advantage, the reduction of troops needed the Allies don't seem all too interested in taking ground.  Not that that is a bad thing.  But it just seems to me that either the war aspect is failing or there isn't an interest in it.  The nights I have been on the fight has centered mostly around furballing in the A13-A69/70/71 area.  I could just enable all planes in the setup at each airfield for their respective side??  

Do you think that would help quell the complaints?  Other than that I need a better way to generate a war.

As for the hording, or player behavior, to expect a new map, arena setting or some "war" concept to suddenly make a "chivalrous" player base is completely ridiculous. Come on..

We have to put the time in, discuss like adults, behave like adults and develop a sense of community where people have respect for each other.  That doesn't happen over night.  If it is something you truly want and to give up trying to achieve it after a couple nights is a bit of a shortcoming don't ya think?

Let's hear opinions on eliminating the rare plane aspect!

Perk points is not an option, since we are tied to MA perk tables. Without bugging Skuzzy and generating more work.

Keep those brains churning!!

<S>

[choppit]

Let's hear opinions on eliminating the rare plane aspect!

       Frankly, I love the idea of rare planes, it's just that they are placed at front-line bases. The furballs in my experience start when the Spit Vs up along with a few Bostons and P-40s and try to take A 13. From what I have seen the typical allied pilot is not as experienced as the typical Axis pilot (with a few exceptions obviously). That leads to the fight generally being broken up and the base take avoided, but then the furball starts. With the eventual superiority of the allied fighters over the axis planes. This is when the horde starts. After that people get disinterested and a bombing run is usually organized to break the horde over A 13. Then rinse and repeat. Overall, like I've been saying, reduce the rare planes to Second-line bases X miles from the front. 

[Shifty]

Let's hear opinions on eliminating the rare plane aspect!

Maybe make them less rare since the map is so large allowing a few more bases to host them would help.

Or make it a rule they cannot be at a frontline base.

Then there's the traditional approach of enabling all planes that were historically there at the period represented.

It's pretty obvious no matter what you try you cannot please everybody and there are going to be complaints.

[Chemdawg]

Last night there were some real obvious attempts by the Axis to fight the war. While A13 was "horded" several fighters, bombers and a couple of C47's attempted to make their way south of the major furball and flew quite a distance for this attempt. I applaud those individuals for their perseverance. The Allied took two Vehicle Hangers but could not muster the airfield takeover.

The war is still on! I can't speak for every horde but I can speak for the one last night. It was present as a fighter cap so we could take the vehicle bases and subsequently the airfield. Problem was it took almost all of the Allied horde to create even the smallest of buffers so that the P40's and Bostons could even try to knock down some of the city. Which , by the way, was unsuccessful due to the persistent Luftwaffe fellers.

I believe it was the night before when the tables were quite turned on the Allies. The horde was of the Axis origin. Hordes are never going to go away. That is something that all players must come to the realization of. As long as there are plans made to take over a base, the "horde" will be assembled.

And as soon as our fellow Avenger brethren return from their summer furlow... it's on.

Jeager....just one thing... I still hold the "shot down" record. Don't push me buddy, our next merge, I might just auger to continue my reign.

[Shifty]

Bug one other option...

Since by nature tactical air units are nomadic, or mobile... You might go ahead and require that the rare planes are not based at the front, but give the CO's power to reposition one or two rare units not all of them every two or three days according to battle conditions. This is also an historical practice.
<S>

[a4944]

Hmmm... lot's of things to ponder there.

Regarding a different objective for the war other than capturing a base.  I for one can't think of one that will work.  We are limited to the maps we have, created by players like you, so although they are quite willing to work with us on some regards.  It would be a bit much to ask them to restructure the maps to fit our AvA war.  To achieve this someone would have to create one specifically to do this.   Even if this was to be done, you would then base the war upon factors that must be hand tallied by someone.  I am all for developing the war that will work, but need to hear more concrete idea and strive to keep them automated within the game.

But my observations on the war aspect of this setup is that people don't seem interested.  The one big major complaint I'm hearing is the close proximity of the Spit V base to the front and the distance that the Axis must fly the 109f to the fight.  But even with this air advantage, the reduction of troops needed the Allies don't seem all too interested in taking ground.  Not that that is a bad thing.  But it just seems to me that either the war aspect is failing or there isn't an interest in it.  The nights I have been on the fight has centered mostly around furballing in the A13-A69/70/71 area.  I could just enable all planes in the setup at each airfield for their respective side??  

Do you think that would help quell the complaints?  Other than that I need a better way to generate a war.

As for the hording, or player behavior, to expect a new map, arena setting or some "war" concept to suddenly make a "chivalrous" player base is completely ridiculous. Come on..

We have to put the time in, discuss like adults, behave like adults and develop a sense of community where people have respect for each other.  That doesn't happen over night.  If it is something you truly want and to give up trying to achieve it after a couple nights is a bit of a shortcoming don't ya think?

Let's hear opinions on eliminating the rare plane aspect!

Perk points is not an option, since we are tied to MA perk tables. Without bugging Skuzzy and generating more work.

Keep those brains churning!!

<S>

As Chemdawg stated, there was quite a bit of war fighting the last night.  VBs changed hands.  Taking an airfield is going to be very difficult with the ealry war planeset.  The town is going to be tough to flatten but people are trying.

The perk fighters is a good concept.  This was discussed a long time ago.  The idea was to use them to help even things out a bit when one side is dominating.  As they advance, they run into the better fighters and it becomes slightly more of a challenge.  As implemented, they can be based anywhere.  With the difficulty of taking fields in early war, there is no reason not to base them at the front and then we lose some of the early war planeset as people just fly the perked fighters too much.  I think they should be limited to rear fields.  I also think that refueling/rearming should be disabled so there is less incentive to fly them to distant front lines.  It's already half way through the first week so perhaps this could be considered for week 2.  Perhaps not a good reason, but it also gives the new people trying out the arena a plane they recognize.

As long as the numbers stay up, lets fine tune and see what happens.

Venom

[TheBug]

Bug one other option...

Since by nature tactical air units are nomadic, or mobile... You might go ahead and require that the rare planes are not based at the front, but give the CO's power to reposition one or two rare units not all of them every two or three days according to battle conditions. This is also an historical practice.
<S>

I like this idea, it goes in hand with Venom's concept that it should get tougher as you penetrate the front.  The moving part is a good idea, but will require a staffer's presence.  Which although usually not a problem I can't guarantee it.  But I think we will use this idea for the second week <S>

[Geophro]

You have all already mentioned the main problem.  You have warfighters and furballers competing against each other.
There is nothing wrong with the war concept, and continued improvement with it will surely bring more people into the arena.
It may not be perfect, but it is still far superior to the main arenas in my opinion.

An idea occurred to me just now.  There were only a few of us on, and we were happily furballing away.  I don't know if it was because other people saw that something was going on in the arena, or just as time progressed more people got their stuff done and had time to play.  But as the numbers escalated, the furball degenerated and the war mentality took over.  That's good for the war, bad for the furball.

I know it would be a lot of extra work, but if the war maps had a pair of uncapturable bases off by themselves to keep the furballers happy, both things could run concurrently.  The furballers would have the limited plane sets without a war mentality, and the warfighters would have a larger pool of people to potentially coax back into the war effort.  And the people trying to decide what arena to join would potentially see more action in AvA and show up to see what was going on.

I admit that I am a furballer.  Sometimes the war can be entertaining, but most of the time I simply have a little time to burn and want to spend it getting shot down by a quality opponent.  The AvA war concept has a lot of potential.  This would be a way to stop (ok, at least limit some) the whining of us furballers and develop the war at the same time.

Thanks for all the hard work.