Author Topic: This seems obvious to me  (Read 6205 times)

Offline Anaxogoras

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #60 on: March 08, 2009, 08:44:19 PM »
not one single person has suggested 100% realism... nobody..

Yes, but that is what all the nay-sayers are arguing against because it's a lot easier than arguing against the reasonable position that we stand for. ;)
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Offline Anaxogoras

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #61 on: March 08, 2009, 08:57:15 PM »
I grasp your point that a more complicated game might sort out some of the less complicated people, and thus improve game play.  I understand that IL2 is a more complicated game (I've never played it, but it's what I hear), so probably we can glean an answer from there.  Do those of you who have played the two games find that there is less HOing, ganging and vulching in IL2, or that people there avoid fights less than they do in the AH MAs?

This is a real question, not a criticism of either side of the issue.

- oldman

Good question.  My experience is limited, but here are a few forum quotes of Il-2 players opinions:

Quote
P.S. If you think Vukching here is bad..try out Aces High. I have never seen vulching like that until I tried that game. Folks circle like buzzards and swoop down over the spawns. People there don't whine about it..its part of life..you just wait for them to leave or you go up and fight them off. Simple isn't it.

Quote
If you think vulching is bad here..try taking off from a base under seige in Aces High.. LOL

Quote
Some you guys should go do a free trial at aces high or one of the other mmog that incorporates real-estate acquisition. IL2 players tend to have little experience with combined tactics involving large scale operations (most il2 just furball)

The Head-On (funny whine)

Quote
In aces high, the spitfire VIII seems completely sloppy in turning, handling and feels uber heavy in the vertical when compared to the spitIX, but i dont think the Spitfire VIII's extra 180 lbs of weigt should do that much damage to maneuverability. And DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED about the tempest in that horrid game ><

can't turn, roll and everyone only flies it as a running-HO (Head On)attack platform.



« Last Edit: March 08, 2009, 09:03:14 PM by Anaxogoras »
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Offline Lye-El

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #62 on: March 08, 2009, 09:05:52 PM »
correct, nobody wants either of those things, just a little extra fiddlability such as having the option of manual fuel management, and some minor engine management requirements.. again, both of these being optional.. the automatic settings could still be there for new players or those who just dont want to fiddle with it, but there would be potential rewards in performance for those who take the time and learn how to use them effectively.   It wouldn't be a "game ender" for anyone, just an extra layer of immersion and enjoyment for those who choose to make use of it.

How about the option of "fiddlability"  for those that want it...........without the potential rewards in performance. Just the "fiddlability" you get to push more buttons if you want to.

Might want to get rid of that auto takeoff thing too. It would make it more interesting  to watch people trying lift from a field in a hurry.


i dont got enough perkies as it is and i like upen my lancs to kill 1 dang t 34 or wirble its fun droping 42 bombs

Offline moot

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #63 on: March 08, 2009, 09:10:53 PM »
HT pointed out one thing that counters your whole argument.  In Il2 you are just pushing buttons, and the flight model is noticeably crappier.  It's got some nice things like the departures at e.g. hammerheads' top, landing, hitting the brakes too hard on the ground can flip the plane onto its nose, etc.  But those don't say anything for what's inside the box, just that the box has lots of switches on the outside.   It would be nice to have more realistic engine mechanics, e.g. be able to overheat the engine and cause permanent damage because of it, or trade cowl flaps for speed/drag, or a more detailed damage model, or cannon shells able to cause shallow damage (merely burn the paint if they impact at shallow enough angle) etc, but those things aren't guarantees that the actual modeling is good.  Which it isn't in Il2.

Look at it this way.. Imagine Il2 as it is, but with AH's graphics and the instrument micromanagement removed as in AH.  It's a really crappy game.  You can't lump all the extra detail depth of il2 in with the argument that it's got better physics.  It just has a lot of gizmos and bootstrap FM fixes and eye candy that draw attention away from the actual physics. The planes do all fly the same, just with different performance figures.
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Offline Kazaa

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #64 on: March 08, 2009, 09:13:05 PM »
I for one would welcome more realism in AH2.



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Offline Motherland

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #65 on: March 08, 2009, 09:16:04 PM »
Moot.... no one said anything that disagrees with what you said... other than the people making strawman arguments. We all know that Aces High's flight modeling and general gameplay is better than Il-2's, but we would like some more fidelity in the engine department for Aces High. Hopefully in a way that is better than Il-2's (which, looking at the comparison between the two games currently, I would assume would happen), as Il-2's as I understand is unrealistically finnicky.

Offline toonces3

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #66 on: March 08, 2009, 09:17:15 PM »
The OP never attempted to compare Il-2 to AH2 as though Il-2 was 'better'.  He uses the engine management and 'realism' options it offers (however well implemented as HTC points out) to illustrate his point.

FWIW, I totally agree with Anaxagoras.

You make a sim that is so simply a caveman can fly it, you get what you have.  

I don't think Anaxagoras is suggesting HTC make a wide sweeping change to AH2 that causes him to lose subscriptions.  

I do think he is suggesting that by increasing the complexity of the sim, you will attract a more mature, more enthusiastic player.  Whether this is true is debatable I suppose.

However, as long as AH2 remains Quake With Wings (QWW), that is the type of gameplay  it will attract.  And, if you don't think the MA's are QWW, then you're deluding yourself.

FSO and Axis and Allies would be wonderful arenas to test these ideas out.
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Offline Wingnutt

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #67 on: March 08, 2009, 09:27:59 PM »
^^^^

what he said..do it the same way the big vs small map was done.. try it in one arena only for starters if need be..

It cant seem to be pressed home enough that the consensus (of those FOR more fidelity) is that it would be OPTIONAL..  and thus no threat of running anyone off..  folks unwilling or unable to make use of the more complex tasks would not be obligated to do so, they could leave everything on AUTO and fly their merry butts off..  but they would not be able to extract the maximum performance out of their aircraft..   fully knowing this they would be encouraged to learn.. (OH MY GOD THERE IS THAT WORD) a little more about how every thing works and would thus become better pilots..   this would enhance their own experience, as well those who fight against them..   Better opponents = better play.    Its much more enjoyable to fight someone who has some degree of understanding as to what is actually going on, vs someone who has blundered themselves into the air and knows nothing but 1 pass haul bellybutton and HOing all day long...


Offline hitech

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #68 on: March 08, 2009, 09:28:56 PM »
Ok do not mind me, my credentials are only limited.

I only have about 20 hours total of real ACM.

I only have 1bout 600 total hours flying time.

I only have about 200 hours aerobatic.

The only planes I have done dog fights in, are T-6, P51ds, La7s, Marchietties, and RV8's.

Ok and never mind my credentials of very close to 20 years flight sim design.

So lets talk about your so called realism, that you are completely clueless about.


    * Combat trim
You seem to believe combat trim some how is unrealistic, but obviously since you have spent so little time flying real planes, you are clueless how trim actually is used by a pilot. You  seem to believe that flying a perfectly trimed plane gives some sort of advantage in a fight.l It is not, when flying hard manuvers the only time trim comes into play at all is when doing very large changes in air speed. When going from 160 to 360 the forces will become heavy in pitch, and with out ever thinking about it a pilot roll's in a little trim. Now the deal is, in most planes it is done with out ever moving your head out of the cockpit. Tell me how many players in a fight could find the correct key on a key board with out looking to roll in some trim?

2nd Tell me how they can feel the trim on the stick like you do in a real plane, Computer joy sticks work nothing like the real thing. You have zero feel for the forces acting on the stick, and it is much much harder to fly a sim as precesisly as a real plane. Combat trim is a compromise between how the real planes handle and the hardware that is available. It is an attempt at providing a much more realistic flying experience than what you believe it is.

    * Aileron trim for aircraft that did not have it, e.g. a lot of Spitfire marks, 109, etc.
Aileron trim that exists on real planes is only there so that a pilot can trim his planes hands off for long flights. In my RV8 I do this by balancing fuel between the wing tanks, as I am fairly sure most pilots do who can control fuel from each tank. There is no advantage what so ever to have Aileron trim in a dog fight, it is only there to lower the work load for long cruises. Why do you think the P51 had it when other planes did not? SO can I assume because you wish to change aileron trim, you wish to also want to fly 6 - 8 hours missions. And if you do not have this time available you are not permited to take a sortie?

    * Ammunition counters
We have a game  where it is best for people to be able to fly many planes. In the real world pilots put in many hours learning the speciefices of each plane. They knew before they flew how man secs of ammo there plane had. In the world of AH we do not require pilots to have 10 hours of instructions before put into combat in a new plane. Do you really wish the same amout of instructions before you are allowed to fly any given plane type? Or are you once again only taughting makeing somthing more difficult than it was in the real world in the name of BS realism.

    * No mixture controls
Mixture control has one purpose in life, to conserve fuel. When it is time to engage it is not even thought about to shove 3 levers ahead at the same time. Exactly how many people have 3 levers all  beside each other like most real planes have? How easy is it to tak your right hand and push all head to max performance like most fighters were capable of?
    * No supercharger controls
This one could be debated, but the real fact is do you really want to have to learn each planes critical altitudes just so you can do nothing more complicated than pushing one button? Because that is all you are asking for. Push 1 key when your altitude reaches one point. This sounds great fun to me, I tell you what since you believe it is so necessary to a good flight sim, I will write it, and you can come to my office and do nothing but watch the altitidude and press that so important button at the correct time.
    * No radiator/cowl flap controls for engine cooling
Once again, these really have very little to do with dog fights, they have much more to do with engine life.

    * No engine overheats
See above, exactly how high can you run your engine? Or would you wrather just have a randomize control your destiny.
    * Weak engine torque
Engine torque is 100% accurate. We do take one liberty with how the tail wheel operates, but with out those liberties very very very few people including you could get in the air. Do you know a gentleman name Bob Shaw? You know the guy who wrote books, flew fantoms, did carrier landings and such? Well he was tail wheel endorced. The scariest moment I have had in a plane was the first time he flew mine, and on take off he proceeded to bend my airplane enough that it required 3 months of repair.

    * 360 degree head swivel
In reality you have better than 360 deg field of view do to head and eye movement. Tracking an airplane in real life requires no thought as with a joy stick hat. Even with the 360 degree turning, tracking a plane in a sime is many many times more difficult than real life. So it is an atempt to bring things closer to reality. Not less as you seem to state.

    * Flaps auto retract when airspeed increases
Once again choices on how to implement realism, Putting the book spec with auto retract flaps puts more not less realism into the game. It simply forces you to fly as real pilots did. Show me data where the real flaps broke, how they were bent, what happen to all the different type. This data does not exist in any form I have seen.
So the options are make flaps break at the speed the book sais, or make them retract. If we made them work like landing gear and break, we would just put a loud noise before the would break, once again all you are asking for is another key press that is more difficult than real life.

    * No weather
Tell you what, Ill suspend your account 3 out of 7 days a week, because the simple matter is, with bad weather the planes did not fly.

    * Automatic bomb sight calibration
This is now the way it is simply because of the lack of precision of joy sticks. The point is that a pilot must be in the bomb sight, and must be maintaining constant speed and headings before the drop, just as in real life.

    * GPS clipboard map
Once again you are clueless about real life flying. 40 mile vis is not all that uncommon and 20 mile vis is very common. The detail of maps and compture screen do not even approach what real life is like. The volume of land marks you have in real life vs the sim do not compare. Before any long flight I spend a good 30 mins planing my flight path. Now if you wish to be forced to be on the ground for 30 mins before every flight, we could implement what you want, but I have a feeling you once again only what what YOUR brand of realism is, which really is nothing to do with reality.

The simple fact is in real life, people would not be in any of the planes we fly with out at least 100 hours of training. So tell you what, you send me 6 months of money in advance, and in 6 months I let you fly any of the planes we have. And in another 100 hours I will let you fly your first real sortie.

Because what you believe is realism, is nothing of the sort, you just wish to inflate your own ego on flying something that you perceive is more real when in fact it is much less realistic.

The fact is , AH is meant to simulate air combat.Learning this task alone is a never ending task. It is not meant to simulate all the boring pieces of flying that any one who has spent 20 hours of real life flying wishes they did not have to deal with.

HiTech


Offline moot

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #69 on: March 08, 2009, 09:29:56 PM »
The OP never attempted to compare Il-2 to AH2 as though Il-2 was 'better'.  He uses the engine management and 'realism' options it offers (however well implemented as HTC points out) to illustrate his point.

FWIW, I totally agree with Anaxagoras.

You make a sim that is so simply a caveman can fly it, you get what you have.  

I don't think Anaxagoras is suggesting HTC make a wide sweeping change to AH2 that causes him to lose subscriptions.  

I do think he is suggesting that by increasing the complexity of the sim, you will attract a more mature, more enthusiastic player.  Whether this is true is debatable I suppose.

However, as long as AH2 remains Quake With Wings (QWW), that is the type of gameplay  it will attract.  And, if you don't think the MA's are QWW, then you're deluding yourself.

FSO and Axis and Allies would be wonderful arenas to test these ideas out.
But that's what I'm saying. Just complexity for complexity's sake isn't going to make the game better.  More extensive damage model is good, but following a lot of engine startup procedures that end up taking just 1 second once you've learned them isn't. You don't gain anything from that, it doesn't add to the depth of possible air combat tactics. It just increases the workload and so substracts from how much actual air combat you get to do.
edit - see above...


* No weather
Tell you what, Ill suspend your account 3 out of 7 days a week, because the simple matter is, with bad weather the planes did not fly.
I'd disagree.. We do lots of things real pilots didn't do because they weren't immortal like we are in the game. Just the same way I'd argue we ought to have some weather (just one or two storm fronts like we had a while back) for the sake of variety.  Did WWII missions never run into unexpected weather?  I think night time is the same, but probably a lot more difficult to implement.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2009, 09:36:06 PM by moot »
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Offline bj229r

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #70 on: March 08, 2009, 10:50:46 PM »
I remember either Christmas Eve or New Year's eve a couple years ago...was this darkISH sky..low clouds..damned impressive looking...havent seen it since....always either dawn or dusk
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Offline AWwrgwy

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #71 on: March 08, 2009, 10:59:28 PM »
But that's what I'm saying. Just complexity for complexity's sake isn't going to make the game better.  More extensive damage model is good, but following a lot of engine startup procedures that end up taking just 1 second once you've learned them isn't. You don't gain anything from that, it doesn't add to the depth of possible air combat tactics. It just increases the workload and so substracts from how much actual air combat you get to do.
edit - see above...

Agree totally.  Always ask yourself how you or the game would benefit from what you want implemented.  Is it really worth it?

Quote
I'd disagree.. We do lots of things real pilots didn't do because they weren't immortal like we are in the game. Just the same way I'd argue we ought to have some weather (just one or two storm fronts like we had a while back) for the sake of variety.  Did WWII missions never run into unexpected weather?  I think night time is the same, but probably a lot more difficult to implement.

March 3, 1944.  8th AF targets Berlin.  55th FG climbs through clouds until they are at 30k feet over Germany.  End up alone with only 1/3 of the fighters they took off with over Berlin.  Everyone else RTB'd due to weather.

Ok do not mind me, my credentials are only limited.

So lets talk about your so called realism, that you are completely clueless about.
  
         * No weather
Tell you what, Ill suspend your account 3 out of 7 days a week, because the simple matter is, with bad weather the planes did not fly.

    HiTech






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Offline simshell

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #72 on: March 08, 2009, 11:17:34 PM »
I would like a few clouds and maybe a little wind in the main

thats all the weather I would ask for
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Offline Guppy35

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #73 on: March 09, 2009, 12:49:11 AM »
Last night I was on late night and it was one of those nights that reminds me of what AH provides for me.  I'm not a 22 year old P38 pilot of WW2.  I'm a 48 year old P38 pilot wannabe who has a vivid imagination and a passion for the history.

So there I was in my old cartoon 38G in 80th Headhunter markings, with CorkyJr on the nose, and there were all kinds of Japanese birds to fight.  It was the PTO in 1943 early 44 for me as I did my best to make my cartoon pilot turn my cartoon 38 so as not to get cartoon clobbered too soon.

And it was a blast.  As has happened often in the last dozen years of cartoon flying, I was 'in the cockpit'.  That's all I ask.  It let me and my imagination pretend that I was that 22 year old P38 pilot for an hour or so.  Even better my life wasn't really on the line and I knew the sun would come up in the morning whether my cartoon 38 died or not.

I don't want to get up at 2AM for breifing.  I don't want someone deciding what plane I fly, and what my mission is.  I don't want to 'fly' for 3 hours only to have my mission recalled for weather. I don't want my engine to sieze up because the plugs fouled 4 hours into my flight because I've leaned the mixture too fine to extend the range.  I don't want my oxygen to fail at 25K and have me pass out. My real life is busy enough that if I can get an hour of turning and burning every couple nights, I can appease my cartoon 38 pilot.

So nah, lets not get carried away.  I think HTC has found a nice balance.

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Offline trotter

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Re: This seems obvious to me
« Reply #74 on: March 09, 2009, 12:51:03 AM »
Just want to thank you HT for putting in your response, very informative. It's always refreshing to hear what the developers think, and all too often we don't hear anything from that perspective (can't remember the last time there was that much information in a developer's post). I hope, HT, that you can find time to contribute more often on these forums, because in my opinion it really is good for the community to learn more about the game we enjoy <S>.