Toolsheders

[Shane]

The question still stands, Why do Furballers fly in anything but the DA at furball lake?

furball lake is too small as it is.

[hammer]

...It has neither the variety or complexity of MA fights.

[Murdr]

The question still stands, Why do Furballers fly in anything but the DA at furball lake?

First off, its culture leaves much to be desired in my personal opinion.

Second, it is taken to excess IMO...

But problems arise when any of the above are taken to excess.
For instance lets look at what I view as Laz's ideal arena taken to exess.

Air starts 5k off deck. No bombers,no scoring , artifical box aound the play field, that if you run you are blown up. All planes turning style planes, with no planes faster than others.

This would create one fast paced, continues quick action furball. But what are the side effects.
1. New players would burn out fairly quickly.
2. Will to live dimisish greatly.
3. You never get that successfull feeling of beating the odds, and living to tell the tail.
4. You have very little time to socialize with other players.

So while some furballers would say, hey thats all good stuff, I belive AH would be dead long ago if thats all it was.

HiTech

[BnZs]

Like I said, the problem is that it is TOO easy for toolshedders to shut down fights with buffs, it constitutes a mission that is not very realistic for buffs, in the AHII MA the opposition gains no strategic value from the buffs they do shoot down, etc. and so forth.

The problem is that the base capture system isn't generating anything that looks like, say, an 8th Air Force mission vs. the Luftwaffe mission on a regular basis, isn't even generating good fights alot of the times. The two missions that get used for most "wins" are either unescorted buff toolshedder missions with no opposition or noxious and incessant (also possibly incestuous) NOEs with no opposition.

[soupcan]

The extremely popular Donut map was removed from the rotation due to the angst created when the "toolshedders" or "win the war types" felt it necessary to destroy the Fighter Town

The removal of this map IMO is one of the lamest things HTC has ever done.

I would agree with AKAK and call any buff pilot hitting Fighter Town on donut a "limp wristed toolsheder".

[Yarbles]

Why do you find it necessary in a discussion to use debasing personalization's, like “limp wristed”?  Can't you discuss a subject on it's merit?

My experience is that this is a rare gift few posses

OK if every map had 3 uncapturable bases adjacent Knight, Rook and Bish would all the furballing take place there?

I think not. I suspect most people are a bit of both and do different things. Often when they are furballing they are defending a base or attempting to cap a base. This stuff about who needs who is nonsense but there is one fundamental imbalance in the game.

If you have the unfortunate kind of personality to be a "griefer" (I hope that is in the common terms dictionary) you have more opportunity in bombers than fighters. The Bomber pilot is better able to inflict grief as compared to the fighter pilot who cannot single handedly and autonomously influence the game to the same extent.

The game can be played to varying degrees like chess or an Arcade game. Few people opperate at either extreme. The furballers need the Toolshedders because without them there is less meaning and the base changes alter the experience for all over time while engaging other parts of the brain. This is what is going on but the extreme dedicated furballer experiences this without seeing it consciously within their microscopic attention span

[Ack-Ack]

The question still stands, Why do Furballers fly in anything but the DA at furball lake?

It's been answered.  The fact that you don't want to hear or like the answer is another matter entirely.


ack-ack

[The Fugitive]

My experience is that this is a rare gift few posses

OK if every map had 3 uncapturable bases adjacent Knight, Rook and Bish would all the furballing take place there?

I think not. I suspect most people are a bit of both and do different things. Often when they are furballing they are defending a base or attempting to cap a base. This stuff about who needs who is nonsense but there is one fundamental imbalance in the game.

If you have the unfortunate kind of personality to be a "griefer" (I hope that is in the common terms dictionary) you have more opportunity in bombers than fighters. The Bomber pilot is better able to inflict grief as compared to the fighter pilot who cannot single handedly and autonomously influence the game to the same extent.

The game can be played to varying degrees like chess or an Arcade game. Few people opperate at either extreme. The furballers need the Toolshedders because without them there is less meaning and the base changes alter the experience for all over time while engaging other parts of the brain. This is what is going on but the extreme dedicated furballer experiences this without seeing it consciously within their microscopic attention span

This game use to be played all the time with out bombers being in the air. A number of the maps were made so that they started with each country having a base together. I remember many a night flying from one base to the same group of fighters all night never seeing a bomber at all.  As soon as the buffs started fly so did the greifers. Most probably started out thinking they were helping the fight, never realizing that those in the fight had no intention of trying to capture a base the fight was near. But in those days they would listen. If they were asked to leave the furball alone, they would go and work a different base. Today, its more about "pissing the other guy off" as said by HT.

[Yarbles]

This game use to be played all the time with out bombers being in the air. A number of the maps were made so that they started with each country having a base together. I remember many a night flying from one base to the same group of fighters all night never seeing a bomber at all.  As soon as the buffs started fly so did the greifers. Most probably started out thinking they were helping the fight, never realizing that those in the fight had no intention of trying to capture a base the fight was near. But in those days they would listen. If they were asked to leave the furball alone, they would go and work a different base. Today, its more about "pissing the other guy off" as said by HT.

Ahh

I ve been in the game about 2 years. My squad has always been about taking bases and complains bitterly about the knights inability to do this and tendancy to loose maps. It has been occuring to me recently that allot of people dont want to take bases or maps and just want to furball.

We have 2 MA'S . Maybe only one should have capturable bases for a while. My guess is everyone would end up in the capturable map which would prove the parasitic nature of the furballer. They are attracted to the dynamic nature of the game but then want things to remain static. However this is only my prejudice and maybe the maps would be equally popular.

Since HTC is unlikely to try this has anyone an opinion of the hyerthetical outcome.   

[humble]

The question still stands, Why do Furballers fly in anything but the DA at furball lake?

Furballing is a misunderstood term. The "furball" is the highest point of "critical mass" in an ongoing melee that often wanders between the bases that support it. That nexus of action supports a tremendous variety of game play all focused on air to air combat. So you can look at it as a temporary ecosystem of sorts. While you will have a group of hard core T&Ber's there habits often vary by whim or need. There is also a second group of more E oriented pilots that try and feed of the hard corp turners, in turn you have a third set that are engaged in a more B&Z style focused on tagging the "E fighters" as they pop up to the top of the action. Many players are "multidisciplinary" and fly all three styles in a single hop, filtering in thru the top and finally exiting from the bottom. Other players only skirt the main action and look to "work the fringe".

What this does is to set up a complex and ever changing combat environment that cant be duplicated in a setting like furball lake IMO. If we look at the clip(s) I posted above all qualify as a form of furball fighting. I'm not flying around a 20k looking for a target, I'm not repeatedly B&Zing a con etc. The complex ACM and SA required to perform "leviathan level" results in a furball are extremely difficult to master. I've flown for 15 yrs and cant even get close, but the ability to work the furball in a lesser manner is all but disappearing.

I blame this entirely on the ever increasing need for the noobherd (which is now a majority of the player base) to gravitate toward the furballs if they are not rolling unopposed dirt. Invariably someone will take down one or more of the bases supporting the action. IMO the death of the furball began when formations of 4 engine bombers combined with "easy mode" bombing arrived.

Historically the "furball" was the training area for ACM, players evolved over time and many like me started off as "190 drivers" picking the fringes and then went to ponies and then spits or 38's and in the case of AW finally A-26's. When you could fly an A-26 in the top and come out the bottom 20 min later you had accomplished something. All the stages were widely accepted, yes people whined but by and large the natural order of things was understood. Everyone had the same goal in the end "air combat".

[hammer]

...

Historically the "furball" was the training area for ACM, players evolved over time and many like me started off as "190 drivers" picking the fringes and then went to ponies and then spits or 38's and in the case of AW finally A-26's. When you could fly an A-26 in the top and come out the bottom 20 min later you had accomplished something. All the stages were widely accepted, yes people whined but by and large the natural order of things was understood. Everyone had the same goal in the end "air combat".

Very nice analysis, and an angle I hadn't really thought of, but spot on for how I learned fighint in AW. Nowadays, the fight is seen by many as an annoyance that interferes with capturing a base, and as such is avoided. The emphasis has shifted away from the fight. I'm not talking about the 1 vs 1 fight, but the entire idea of fighting. Capturing a base and resetting the map has become far too important and, unfortunately, much easier to do by avoiding the fight instead of fighting the fight.

Regards,

Hammer

[BaldEagl]

I haven't bombed a hanger in several years but I have two questions:

How is the buffer to know that the furball he is about to ruin is not in actually a stalemate on the way to a base capture attempt?  In this case the buffer is trying to help his countrymen by breaking the stalemate.

How does a furballer know that the furball didn't develop from the defense of a base which the other side started out trying to capture?  In this case, the buffer is helping his side to meet the original objective.

Either way who cares?  The furball will always re-form in another location.

[BaldEagl]

The Bomber pilot is better able to inflict grief as compared to the fighter pilot who cannot single handedly and autonomously influence the game to the same extent.

Before i started to avoid flying alone into overwhelming odds I'd often up a base back from a furball take-off location, fly over the furball to the opposing side's take-of field, and dive in.  Even though I eventually died every time, most often I ws able to "move the pile" all the way over to the enemy airfield and do so singlehandedly.

[humble]

There is no simple answer, my thought is that the focus of the game has shifted far away from its historical roots. going all the way back to AW the area between A land and B land was universally known as the VOD (Valley of Dweebs). In reality it was an ongoing furball that almost never ceased. A second area was universally "the pond", here was a 2nd three country semi furball more focused on individual 1 on 1's. Invariably antagonists would say "meet me at the pond" and often the better sticks gravitated there for ongoing fights. This all coexisted relatively nicely for a long time. A lot probably do to the nature of the squads them selfs. AW had a depth of tradition and standards sorely lacking in most of the current "squads". It's not easy to try and articulate the differences between this game in 1999 vs 2004 and now but they are considerable.