This week in the AvA - Leaning Into France

[gldnbb]

GoldenBB,

The focus of the Arena has been to present a "somewhat" historical feel to the match-ups.  This includes ground vehicles and bombers as well.  Capturing bases is something that HTC put into the Main Arenas to channel a 3 country battle.  That type of base capture will never work here for a number of reasons.  First, there are only two countries.  Second, if someone actually took enough bases it would not automatically reset the arena, and no one would be able to capture anything or for that matter do anything until a volunteer from the staff, came in and manually put all the settings in again.  

If you do understand that base captures will be difficult and still want to make this your objective, you can.  Folks are really trying to build a community here, so all types are needed.  
 

Sir,

As I previously stated,  I have 5 years experience in a historical  arena in Warbirds.   2 colors,  2 sides   and base captures work.    The current AvA setup makes it hard to capture, but is slowly doable (such as war).  It brings together more people wanting more out of a historical sim (some like gv'ing, some jaboing, some bombing,  all to advance the war).     AvA should be about historical advances (and alternate reality).   Not  mindless furballing engagements.  

Again,  it is a waste of time to design bombers and gvs (that has troops),  if there is no point in capturing bases for which there is water separating each enemy without c47s.  Which then denegrates to a furball arena  which again is the primary role of  a 'dueling' arena and not the AvA arena.   Your statement makes it one sided to favor  fighter jocks and no one else.  It is a waste of time for bombers to fly in manual calibration without the end-thrill of being able to capture a base.  

Base capturing is completely doable since the arena creators frequently visit to reset it  (I hope).   And as I previously stated,  each arena lasts a week,  base captures are slow.  So  not many resets would be required at all.  

The WWII warbirds arena equivalent constantly bring in the furballers, bombers, jabo'ers, tankers, and base takers because they know they are contributing toward the eventual base capture.  This WWII arena achieves camraderie, coordination, intense battles  for at least 4 hours a night during Mondays and Thursday and approximately 15-30 folks each week.  More than can be said for the AvA arena.

It is doable... and would bring more folks to the AvA which is currently a silent arena of less than 10 people, and if  lucky 5 people on average.

[321BAR]

GoldenBB,

The focus of the Arena has been to present a "somewhat" historical feel to the match-ups.  This includes ground vehicles and bombers as well.  Capturing bases is something that HTC put into the Main Arenas to channel a 3 country battle.  That type of base capture will never work here for a number of reasons.  First, there are only two countries.  Second, if someone actually took enough bases it would not automatically reset the arena, and no one would be able to capture anything or for that matter do anything until a volunteer from the staff, came in and manually put all the settings in again. 

If you do understand that base captures will be difficult and still want to make this your objective, you can.  Folks are really trying to build a community here, so all types are needed. 
 

yes we cannot reset the map. but if it is a historical arena wouldnt people WANT the omaha beach head? wouldnt they WANT St. Lo? and wouldnt they WANT bastogne? these all would involve territory capturing or city taking... Yes there are only two countries but this has nothing to do with base capture system. It would have been there 2 country 3 or 4...

[321BAR]

AvA should be about historical advances (and alternate reality).   Not  mindless furballing engagements.  

It is doable... and would bring more folks to the AvA which is currently a silent arena of less than 10 people, and if  lucky 5 people on average.

i gotta agree with bb here. what is AvA other than a furballing arena with no icon and historical planes? this is why we need to promote and get more pilots in order to get the ball rolling on base taking... base taking can be fun. I'd love to be able to capture normandy or during the BoB have an axis land invasion

[jimson]

Base capture can have a place in the arena. It is a different dynamic than the MA.

One problem is that there is a limited population and sometimes there isn't enough opposition.

My squad has been known to do captures even against no opposition for practice, we are carefull not to run the map and sometimes switch sides and capture the other way to make sure it stays even.

Even so, a wide variety of scenarios will be run, some will have capture as an objective, some won't, sometimes C-47's will be enabled, sometimes only vehicle troop transports will be enabled to stimulate some GV action.

Sometimes only LVT troop transport will be enabled, but on most set-ups capture will be possible.

Keep in mind that the AvA is a tough crowd pleaser, any set-up that someone will like is bound to be a point of contention to someone else.

There is basically nothing that hasn't been tried in the past.

It's just a question of continuing to try and re-try things to find that magic combo, that brings the arena to life, and sustains that interest for more than a week or so, if there is such a combo.

I believe that the arena cannot find sustained success as a fur ball only arena with historical plane sets, and am a strong proponent of some sort of objective based play, but finding the right way to do this is much harder than you would think.

New set-ups are being created, and the set-ups rotate every week. It's a great place to make a home.

Tuesday nights we get some good 10 vs 10 or more battles going, other nights we get some decent numbers as well.

Sometimes you can even find playable numbers in the afternoon, Iv'e had some great times on Mondays and Wednesdays with daytime and Euro based players.

There are a lot of creative juices flowing right now. Stick around, you are bound to see some cool things.

[gyrene81]

No offense gldnbb but I believe you have the wrong idea on this setup...and the AH crowd in general...the no enemy icon deal is something new, not like it was in WBs where people had the S3s and the WWII arena and a few years to learn to enjoy it...it does not appeal to a majority of the population within AH...there is also some old bad blood that still haunts the AvA. Do some searches on the no enemy icon issue and you will see a lot of negativity rather than open mindedness...you can also search for AvA discussions and find the reasons the AvA is mostly empty even with the efforts of people brainstorming trying to come up with ways to bring people in. It's going to be a long uphill battle but I'm confident things will improve.

I noticed your response regarding the bomb sight calibration issue...I flew WBs last year...most nights you would run into a few members of the Ferrets in the WWII arena, then someone would have to jump into the main arena and get others to join in...it rarely lasted more than a few hours, then the arena would empty out completely...everyone would shuffle back to the main arena...I do not recall ever needing to calibrate a bomb sight...and I made a lot of bombing runs on the CV fleets when they were part of the terrain setup using Lancasters. Right now there is a discussion about using easy mode bomb sights in the AvA to try and attract more players who like bombing...if/when that does happen it will be on a trial basis...right now keeping an open mind and contributing ideas that are not self serving is the only way we have a chance to increase the number of players frequenting the AvA.

If everyone would look closely at the write up for the setup that is on the arena now, you will see that base capture is not really a part of the scenario...nor is it even possible with the aircraft involved...the ground vehicles are a useless addition...an unfortunate oversight. The operations that occurred in real life were nothing more than bombing runs to strike back at the Germans for the Battle of Britain...as described in the first paragraph of the setup.

[321BAR]

I believe that the arena cannot find sustained success as a fur ball only arena with historical plane sets, and am a strong proponent of some sort of objective based play, but finding the right way to do this is much harder than you would think.

New set-ups are being created, and the set-ups rotate every week. It's a great place to make a home.

Tuesday nights we get some good 10 vs 10 or more battles going, other nights we get some decent numbers as well.

There are a lot of creative juices flowing right now. Stick around, you are bound to see some cool things.

for the first part i quoted: simple... create a primary objective target such as a base or city for each side with secondaries and triniary targets for bonus points. The ETO map could easily put a large city in place of Caen and another for St. Lo. Both of these could have a small airbase town with map room for an airfield nearby or if for more challenge add 2 or 3 more map rooms. This could simulate an allied invasion and capture of two key strategic cities on the Norman coast. The Axis must defend these objectives. say, one city capture would be 10 points, and the other another ten. while this is the Allied objective, make the Axis have to control the normandy coastline. how many Vbases are there? 6? 2 points per base. Spawn points would speed GV action. (of course i'd LOVE the European terrain intead of palm trees ). This would create D-Day operations for both sides! and if AvA had this point style of combat with a historical balance then we'd have our AvA flyers that we all wish for.

for the second: it's my third home, second to MA, third to my house.

for the third read number one

for the fourth: im not going anywhere

[Shifty]

Sir,

As I previously stated,  I have 5 years experience in a historical  arena in Warbirds.   2 colors,  2 sides   and base captures work.    The current AvA setup makes it hard to capture, but is slowly doable (such as war).  It brings together more people wanting more out of a historical sim (some like gv'ing, some jaboing, some bombing,  all to advance the war).     AvA should be about historical advances (and alternate reality).   Not  mindless furballing engagements.  

Again,  it is a waste of time to design bombers and gvs (that has troops),  if there is no point in capturing bases for which there is water separating each enemy without c47s.  Which then denegrates to a furball arena  which again is the primary role of  a 'dueling' arena and not the AvA arena.   Your statement makes it one sided to favor  fighter jocks and no one else.  It is a waste of time for bombers to fly in manual calibration without the end-thrill of being able to capture a base.  

Base capturing is completely doable since the arena creators frequently visit to reset it  (I hope).   And as I previously stated,  each arena lasts a week,  base captures are slow.  So  not many resets would be required at all.  

The WWII warbirds arena equivalent constantly bring in the furballers, bombers, jabo'ers, tankers, and base takers because they know they are contributing toward the eventual base capture.  This WWII arena achieves camraderie, coordination, intense battles  for at least 4 hours a night during Mondays and Thursday and approximately 15-30 folks each week.  More than can be said for the AvA arena.

It is doable... and would bring more folks to the AvA which is currently a silent arena of less than 10 people, and if  lucky 5 people on average.

There are very few AVA setups that do not have the base capture option. This is one of the few. Base capture is usally an option in most AVA setups... There are going to be setups you like and there are going to be setups you don't like. It's that way for all of us. I will consider what you've said in this thread and try to include a base capture option in any future setups I put forward.

the ground vehicles are a useless addition...an unfortunate oversight.

Actually Gyrene the ground vehicles are not an oversite at all. They were put there to counter vulching.

[Shifty]

Sorry double posted 

[trap78]

gldnbb,

There is one huge difference between the WWII arena in WB’s and the AvA. The former would reset automatically when one side “won the war” by capturing enemy bases. This isn’t the case with the AvA where the arena simply becomes unusable and game play comes to grinding halt. This is a bug that can only be resolved by the game developers themselves and honestly, if they were interested the issue would have been fixed a long time ago.

In WB’s historically minded players like ourselves had the full support of the game developers behind us. Unfortunately the opposite is true over here. Our desire for a first rate historically based arena is simply tolerated by the people in charge.

My point is this: I agree completely with the idea of applying the WWII arena model to the AvA. But the reality is the CM’s don’t have the tools at their disposal that we had in WB’s. So we have to be extremely creative in finding ways of working around the road blocks resulting from lack of support at the development level.

[Dawger]

I think there needs to be some serious out of the box thinking.

In "that other game" I had a big toolbox and tried lots of stuff. We encouraged large heavy bomber raids in the Europe theater by tying ownership of airfields to tonnage dropped on the nearby city. I built several supply line based strategy systems in different terrains. At one point I even had the capability to limit airframes available to players and built a real time 72 hour Battle of Britain with the historical numbers of aircraft at the historical bases.

What I learned personally is that the design of the arena must focus the fight and provide a purpose. The major flaw in Aces High and Warbirds is airfield centered objectives. Only in the Pacific was the fight ever about an airfield. And this airfield - centric game play runs counter to keeping players interested because when the fight is over an airfield and one side or the other has the ability to close it (keep the other guy from flying) you directly kill the fight by taking away the ability to fly.

What the AvA really needs is to shift from this style of terrain design. In the real world, the ground forces take territory with support from bombers, attack, and observation/rescue/utility aircraft. Fighters protect these valuable and vulnerable aircraft.

The big question is how to simulate this process without requiring a bunch of people to do stuff they don't necessarily want to do.

As things currently stand in Aces High it would all have to be done manually, which would require direct supervision by someone with arena privileges and the desire to objectively judge results. This really isn't a realistic possibility outside of an arena event not more than a few hours long.

I do think AvA events are the place to start but that has its own set of problems. Events require someone to design and manage the event. That someone has to be proficient in arena setup and possess the ability to quickly and accurately reconfigure the arena according to the needs of the event.

I am not intimately familiar with AH arena setup but what I have seen looks very similar to WB. What I don't know is the level of arena privilege HTC allows. Back when AH allowed 8 person arenas I had lots of fun setting those up. If the same level of access is available to someone with privileges in the AvA then there would be the possibility of designing and creating interesting events that fit into what I think BB is looking for.

[trap78]

Dawger,

Given the reset bug that plagues the arena and lack of support from the game designers, what are the chances for implementing the scripting capabilities that enabled many of the game play features we had in WB’s? Or any core improvements to the arena for that matter. Thinking outside of the box becomes much more difficult when someone already has the lid tightly shut.

[gldnbb]

No offense gldnbb but I believe you have the wrong idea on this setup...and the AH crowd in general...the no enemy icon deal is something new, not like it was in WBs where people had the S3s and the WWII arena and a few years to learn to enjoy it...it does not appeal to a majority of the population within AH...

My disccussion has nothing to do with no-icons.   In fact, I love it.   My discussion only involves a lack of base capture ability in the current setup that separates 2 countrys by water, which denegrates to a mindless furball...

I noticed your response regarding the bomb sight calibration issue...I flew WBs last year...most nights you would run into a few members of the Ferrets in the WWII arena, then someone would have to jump into the main arena and get others to join in...it rarely lasted more than a few hours, then the arena would empty out completely...everyone would shuffle back to the main arena...

That is what I had already said,  but lately the WWII Warbirds doesget a good share of people during at least 2 nights and then there are sparsely amounts of people on other nights.  We get many squads coming to join us Ferrets or oppose us with numbers hitting 30-50's on these nights.   And then as the night winds down it becomes sparse again but on other nights I had seen a few numbers in there capturing or defending.  AvA at times feel to mimics this sparsenesss.  However, has the ability to grab more people with the terrain capture ability and complexity that WB will never have....Can be so much more player participation with it offering so much more realism than WBs

I do not recall ever needing to calibrate a bomb sight...and I made a lot of bombing runs on the CV fleets when they were part of the terrain setup using Lancasters. Right now there is a discussion about using easy mode bomb sights in the AvA to try and attract more players who like bombing...if/when that does happen it will be on a trial basis...right now keeping an open mind and contributing ideas that are not self serving is the only way we have a chance to increase the number of players frequenting the AvA.

You calibrate bomb sights in WBs,  just that the system does it for you and it takes about 30 seconds to fully calibrate.  It's just too easy and allows too much hankary with bomb and bail problems and unrealistic NOE raids.... Easy mode calibration may bring in numbers, but will  bring  running of the map and required resets (which some fear).  For me, the way I see things,  manual calibration is not hard at all once you get the procedures down.   In fact I'm quite a capable manual mode bomber because of AvA practice.   It is both exceptional and appropriate for the AvA also because it aids in practice for FSO's and Special events,  for which if you don't practice prior to these events then there is a steep learning curve when you sign up for the missions on these events.    Manual calibaration for bombers  is equal to the no-icons for fighters.  A positive thrill for which the AvA can be.

If everyone would look closely at the write up for the setup that is on the arena now, you will see that base capture is not really a part of the scenario...nor is it even possible with the aircraft involved...the ground vehicles are a useless addition...an unfortunate oversight. The operations that occurred in real life were nothing more than bombing runs to strike back at the Germans for the Battle of Britain...as described in the first paragraph of the setup.

I saw the write up, and understand it.  Just pointing out that the nice detail the person went through to design this piece of history is nice,  but also a waste of time to include bombers and gvs  for this history   if all you truly are offering are the fighter jocks to slug it out over the skies with no thought to the other guys that bring other elements to the war.    What's the point in bombing the other side if you know that there is no outcome to affect the other side?   Will this map  lead to next week's point in the war?   Maps are not chronological as I see,  and only last a week.   not much fun can come out of staying in an arena to use the bombers  if you can't really affect the other side.   Which then just leads to one fun conclusion, only go in there to  use fighters as a 'dueling' contest between two factions.  Which is just for the fighters alone, and no one else.    

[Dawger]

Dawger,

Given the reset bug that plagues the arena and lack of support from the game designers, what are the chances for implementing the scripting capabilities that enabled many of the game play features we had in WB’s? Or any core improvements to the arena for that matter. Thinking outside of the box becomes much more difficult when someone already has the lid tightly shut.

I assume you are referring to the current state of affairs in WB's. I haven't been there in three years. As for Aces High implementing a scripting system it would only require HTC deciding to do it. It was a very simple system and I am sure it would be no problem to accomplish.

The issue is the motivation to do so. The scripting system in WB was built to allow some new revenue streams for the parent company. It wasn't something done to directly help the existing WB player group. That was a side benefit that was minimally exploited and is generally wasted.

If HTC created a scripting system for customers to use and supported it on any level it would be a major boon for those looking for different game play. Couple that with changes in terrain design philosophy and the possibilities are tremendous but there are some serious obstacles to any of that coming to fruition.

[gldnbb]

I assume you are referring to the current state of affairs in WB's. I haven't been there in three years. As for Aces High implementing a scripting system it would only require HTC deciding to do it. It was a very simple system and I am sure it would be no problem to accomplish.

The issue is the motivation to do so. The scripting system in WB was built to allow some new revenue streams for the parent company. It wasn't something done to directly help the existing WB player group. That was a side benefit that was minimally exploited and is generally wasted.

If HTC created a scripting system for customers to use and supported it on any level it would be a major boon for those looking for different game play. Couple that with changes in terrain design philosophy and the possibilities are tremendous but there are some serious obstacles to any of that coming to fruition.

I recall the scripting system, tried at one point,  as was a great element to a 'war' feeling in warbirds.   Do something to one base, and halt resupplying.    CV's come by and help a nearby base.     Aces high main arena has  a rudimentary resupply of convoys and trains and thrilling to see it that being used,  but also you can affect enemies by hitting their strat factorys/fuel depots/citys.

That is fun and why so many types of pilots fly in the main arena,  plus for base captures!

Which AH currently blows WB out of the water in terms of complexities and current strategies.

Tuesday nights with SWOOPS b24 raids over enemy cities in the main arena are awesome fun for bomber and fighters.  Why? because it has an eventual outcome that can aid in future base captures for others.    Either design the AvA with chronological progression week to week (as WWIIol does)   or  allow base captures to occur within each map which also give the bombers something to do as well.

[gyrene81]

Either design the AvA with chronological progression week to week (as WWIIol does)   or  allow base captures to occur within each map which also give the bombers something to do as well.

Can't with the current server control available to the CM's...and a general lack of terrains suitable to the Ava...several of us have suggested campaign style map rotations and such...can't be done.


I never saw 30 in the WWII arena even on a good night...must have been something that just started since you ferrets started advertising some activities or before I started WBs.