AvA Suggestions

[B4Buster]

What do you guys think would make gameplay in the AvA better? One Idea I had was having no enemy icons, Would make things a bit more realistic, and would put your SA to the test.

Is it possible for the CMs to disable icons? I know Special Event CMs couldn't if I remember right.

[fudgums]

Combat Tour please 

[Larry]

It wouldn't make it more realistic since our monitors don't have as good a resolution as the human eye. Also I don't think staff can disable icons just set the distance on which they appear.

[B4Buster]

It would be cool to have the distance shortened to say 3k then

[Steel]

Currently they cant disable icons....however dont get me started about not having icons.

Not having them would be like flying legally blind....hardly realistic.

My vote.....fresh attitude and more people. That would be the best thing...

Steel

[Anaxogoras]

My suggestions:

• No icons would push a lot of people out, including me.
• Get rid of the fuel burn multiplier; its normal absence is one of the motivating reasons for me to fly in the AvA.  At the very least go for 1.5x as a compromise.
• Disable bomber drones.  One player, one aircraft or vehicle.
• Increase AAA to normal main arena levels.  Current settings encourage vulching.
• Great emphasis on historical accuracy for planesets, i.e. less "gameplay" compromise, the imbalances are what make the AvA interesting.

[B4Buster]

Planesets are usually historic, this was just a furball setting. I agree with burn mult and ack settings though

[Larry]

• Increase AAA to normal main arena levels.  Current settings encourage vulching.

Increasing AAA will only encourage ack running. If you want to stop any vulching make maned ack hardness a few hundred pounds.

[captain1ma]

I know, how about matched plane sets??  

[Shifty]

Id be for limiting the number of plane types each week. Limit it to two or at the very most three different fighters at most per side and concentrate on some of the historic matchups. No dog piling RAF and USAAF or USN and USAAF at the same time.

[republic]

Unfortunately powerful ack leads to ack hugging.  It's really either or.  Either you risk vulches or you risk ackhugging.  I'd rather risk vulching, because that's nearly universally accepted as silly, and you can always up a warblwind and ruin their day.

Burn multiplier has never bothered me but I don't see any reason why we couldn't try a different setting, might make some interesting fights when you can't have the 'perfect' weight for every fight.

I don't agree with dropping bomber drones, we don't generally have enough people to mount an effective offensive without drones.  It's painful as an axis player to encounter allied boxes but...I still say keep them.

My contribution:

I'd really like to see well formed squads flying together...but I don't think there's any way to do that other than try and coordinate some squad nights on the same night.  Back during the war, we used to up a wing in formation, always loved that.  Other squads did the same.  Best fights I ever had, our wing encountering another and the ensuing furball.

Structured missions each week like Larry has been doing would be great.  Including something we haven't done in a very long time, GV missions and objectives.  Long ago we used to have GV only night, dunno about doing that again but some coordinated GV assaults/defenses would be a hoot. (of course with supporting air cover).  Especially since we've got several new tank models since we used to do that so long ago.

Most importantly, everyone needs to have an open mind.  There is no good and evil here, just people with different and equally important opinions.

[Anaxogoras]

Increasing AAA will only encourage ack running. If you want to stop any vulching make maned ack hardness a few hundred pounds.

I figure that if someone is able to run away from me into their AAA, I made a mistake in not killing him quickly enough, or I'm too close to his airbase.  The first one is always my fault, the second is my fault when there's some distance between the bases.  With the setups we've had recently where you could walk from one base to the other, tougher AAA would be problematic.

[Dawger]

I love no icons. Flew without icons quite a bit in Warbirds. Love the fights, much more realistic and intense.

I did a test back in warbirds comparing real world visibility of aircraft compared to in game. I won't go into all the details but the end result was that the game failed in the level of detail in a mid range. At distances over a mile the game is faithful to real life for WWII size aircraft. Between about a mile and 300 yards the game did not measure up (mainly because of the field of view). Back inside 300 yards the game was pretty close to reality again.

I came to this determination using real world aircraft in flight over known distances. A 109 size aircraft is very hard to see and identify more than a mile away.

I also did a silhouette ID test. I created silhouettes of every aircraft in the game from top view screen shots and scaled them all the same.

I printed these and gave my wife 5 minutes to study them and then tested her ability to correctly identify them from various scale distances starting far away and moving in closer.

I then did the same test myself.

The result was that someone very familiar with the silhouettes was able to correctly identify them at twice the distance as someone who was not familiar.

My personal preference would be an icon system that eliminated the mid range failure without presenting a neon billboard 3 miles away.

But I doubt there will be any resources spent on such a project.

And I don't think there are very many folks willing to fly without the neon crutch.

The fights are more intense and confusing and real world tactics world correspondingly but it does make finding the fight more difficult and really is not appropriate for casual play.

[Shane]

What do you guys think would make gameplay in the AvA better? One Idea I had was having no enemy icons, Would make things a bit more realistic, and would put your SA to the test.

Is it possible for the CMs to disable icons? I know Special Event CMs couldn't if I remember right.

yes they can, via reduced icon ranges.  no, they shouldn't.  nothing stops *you* from turning off icons. the whole icon/radar thing has been beaten to death.  Limited settings = limited numbers. But most importantly, we all have unique computer setups and internet connex.

[Hungry]

Historical plane sets period and ditch the "unwritten" abusive rules.