Stats?

[Skuzzy]

Hmmm, I might be able to stop the ranking/scores from being shown and still leave access to the stats.  Let me think on it.

[jimson]

If you want to know the business reason...just examine the history of warbirds. Hitech has been quoted as saying give the people what they want, not what they ask for. Warbirds created an Axis versus Allies Arena that was 2 country, allied planes for one side, axis for the other with otherwise Main Arena settings. The squad I was in at the time had 150 members. In a few months it had less than 30. Why did Warbirds commit suicide in this manner? The players kept asking for Axis versus Allies split in the plane set. It is not a winner for large scale success (In online flying terms)

No icons makes a big difference in any historical split towards an even playing field but even then setups have to be carefully designed.

Dawger, did WB create an additional arena or replace the main with one, forcing the set-up on everyone?

Big difference.

 

[Dawger]

Dawger, did WB create an additional arena or replace the main with one, forcing the set-up on everyone?

Big difference.

 

I can't be sure but what I remember is that they created the WWII Arena with the RPS and full realism and still had a Main Arena with relaxed realism available in it. Everyone moved to the WWII Arena because of the RR in the Main. its all pretty fuzzy now. It was a long time ago. I do remember the Axis /Allies split really killed the game. It also killed the low icon range Historical Arena as well. It was empty until Warbirds III came out. When Warbirds III came out iEN started with a Main Arena and no WWII Arena. The Historical Arena was still around (with me running it ). For six weeks the no icon HA was the primary arena in Warbirds until AI was introduced in the Main and like lemmings everyone went back to the main and stayed, even the ones that professed to love the no icons.

One of the curious drivers of player behavior is the perception of people in an arena. Just the other night my squadron flew 3 sorties each in two different arenas. One arena we saw action every sortie and it was easy to find and constant. The other arena we flew 30 minutes before we saw action and once we found it it was sporadic.

The arena with the easy to find constant action was the AvA with 15 players in it. The hard to find action was in the LWBlue with 300 players in it. We spend most of our time in the LW Mains trying to figure where we will get an actual fight even though there are hundreds of players in the arena.

People go where numbers are just because there are numbers there. The quality or quantity or ease of finding the fight seem to make little difference.

[gyrene81]

Dawger, I heard from several sources that the rolling plane sets were what killed the WWII arena in Warbirds, no one wanted to fly the early war stuff. Considering the crappy terrains and the way the plane sets were divided, I can understand it. The entire game pretty much emptied out when the flight models got messed up in Warbirds 3.

Hmmm, I might be able to stop the ranking/scores from being shown and still leave access to the stats.  Let me think on it.

If that is possible, it would be very cool. 

[Dawger]

The rolling plane set existed before the WWII arena. It was used in the main arena. I hated it anywhere it was used.

Warbirds made a series of mistakes resulting in the pitiful shell it is now.

I'd hate for the AvA to try to make those same mistakes.

The AvA needs to keep it focus on history and balanced setups and not try to go to some version of an axis/allied split all planes arena. That sucked the worst.

[TheBug]

Fantastic Idea!  Is this even possible to do?

You could keep track of the 'most' popular maps and rotate through them.  Then have a different rotation every week/month which you could post on the forums/website.

Not possible at the moment as Jimson explained.  But it should be the vision of the AvA and think trying to get a close to that with what currently is possible would give more life to the AvA.

[Cheese]

Warbirds created an Axis versus Allies Arena that was 2 country, allied planes for one side, axis for the other with otherwise Main Arena settings.
The rolling plane set existed before the WWII arena. It was used in the main arena. I hated it anywhere it was used.
Warbirds made a series of mistakes resulting in the pitiful shell it is now.
I'd hate for the AvA to try to make those same mistakes.

The AvA needs to keep it focus on history and balanced setups and not try to go to some version of an axis/allied split all planes arena. That sucked the worst.

From my limited time here, my impression is that AvA is TRYING to focus on historical planesets and matchups.   I can really see how doing what you mention above would tick folks off in the MA - they HAVE to fly their favorite plane no matter what.  But the whole purpose of AvA is to provide the historical plane match ups and battles.

[Shifty]

From my limited time here, my impression is that AvA is TRYING to focus on historical planesets and matchups.   I can really see how doing what you mention above would tick folks off in the MA - they HAVE to fly their favorite plane no matter what.  But the whole purpose of AvA is to provide the historical plane match ups and battles.

 

[TheBug]

  But the whole purpose of AvA is to provide the historical plane match ups and battles.

And TaNk wARz!! 

[Cheese]

Tank warZ?  Isn't that a different game - 'Aces Low' or something like that?  Lol

[Chilli]

Hey there TheBug is pointing to something that was a great deal of discussion about.  Most of the setups have had a historical battle associated with it.  That will continue to be as far as I can see.  Attempting to involve more "types" of battles other than dogfights, without diminishing the availability for those to occur, something new was tried and had a great deal of success after ironing out some rough spots.

Although we might have to stretch our imagination a little to associate the setup with any one particular battle in history, the vehicles and planes were chosen for the time period.  I feel that sitting in either one of the battles that occurred, historical combat simulation was not compromised once the 262s were dragged farther away from the action.

70 years later we still do not have full accounts of all the action that occurred in WW2.  Who is to say that skirmish was no less accurate than any Guadalcanal setup we run, substituting for equipment where we have to?

[TheBug]

something new was tried and had a great deal of success after completely changing it, thank god.

Fixed

[Chilli]

There has been some criticism that the AvA only presents one kind of gameplay, furball.  Fixed

Moving Me262s to rear bases, and perks used to simulate rare numbers were the only tweaks, if I recall correctly.

The map itself, had some bases that were not ground assault friendly, due to proximity of cities to those fields.  That was caught and worked around early, so basically the objectives to capture neutral territory in the middle of the air war, was by design a success, and even on a map with many fields changing hands the furball was not diminished. 

The phrase "Tank WarZ" was little more than an invitation for members of the community to enjoy some of the tools that HTC has given us since the original Combat Theater concept.  Has it even been a year since we even received American armor besides the M8 and halftrack?   

[Dawger]

From my limited time here, my impression is that AvA is TRYING to focus on historical planesets and matchups.   I can really see how doing what you mention above would tick folks off in the MA - they HAVE to fly their favorite plane no matter what.  But the whole purpose of AvA is to provide the historical plane match ups and battles.

I wasn't referring to the past. Some of the comments in this thread made me fear for the future. There are several requests that brought back bad memories of days long ago.

[Chilli]

Dawger,

It's all good.  This forum has always been thought provoking for me.  I respect others opinions and just offer mine. 

With all that Skuzzy must have on his plate, taking time to help us sort out ranking and scoring, shows how communication works.  Thanks for raising the issue on stats.  When all sorted out, this will benefit so many.  I listed ranks in our squad chalkboard (the latest available anyhow), but I was more interested in the stats, much more digestible information there.

Heck, our squad flew against one another most of the time so ranks wouldn't tell us much.  Stats however, 

The future of the AvA, not in question here.  We have strong veteran leadership, and a wealth of history enthusiasts that are working under real life constraints in order to stay true to the Arena's intent and push forward innovations in the game brought to us by HTC.