Is this what you wanted HTC?

[Spikes]

For anyone who hasn't been playing this game for at least 7 years you just wouldn't understand.

I know, ya'll say I look at this game through a fogged memory, but it has changed a lot since the old days. Back then you could have an uneven numbered situation like 5 on 2, and 2 or 3 of the 5 would just circle and watch the fight and only join in if one of his teammates got shot down.

"Bingo" meant I'm out and the enemy gave you a salute and told you head see ya when you can back, instead of chasing you down with 12 of his closest friends just so one of you could have the kill.

You would spend hours fighting the same 10 guys over and over a gain and nobody would be PMing or swearing over 200. Even the good natured "ribbing" was done with a bunch of laughs.

The only frustration in the game was when you had to make a run to the bathroom because you just couldn't hold it any longer.

It is much harder to find a good fight these days and I really enjoy those that I find. My frustration level climbs quickly when those few fights are destroyed by some Ahole that just NEEDS the kill and has to pick, or HO. It seems to me that some of that has come back with the changes HTC has made. Is it better, yes, is it like it use to be, not even close, but I'll take what I can get and hope things continue to improve. Until then my wife likes having me hang around with her more than I fly. 

Well said Fugi

[Oldman731]

I will agree with you on one point, the community has definitely changed. Instead of the older crew who came from Airwarrior and Warbirds who were around in the infancy of online game-play (before the 'fail' and 'pwn' attitudes), we have many more young people. Many of these younger people don't know a time before online gaming and don't know how to meet/greet people outside of virtual reality. Instead of treating people in the game as comrades they may even eventually meet like the old timers did in flight sims, they'd rather use the game as an ego booster. Please, I'm not saying all younger players are like this but it is much more pervasive than it ever was in the past.

Well duh. We got old and there are new young players outnumbering us. What did you expect?  The game hasn't changed, the way it's played has changed. Surprise!

The TV shows and movies aren't any good these days either. Kids don't respect their elders. When I went to school I had to walk a mile in the snow and my parents beat me if I was late for dinner....

Give me a break. Don't blame the game because it doesn't match your memories of the halcyon days of yesteryear.

- oldman

[Max]

JB42, I hear what you're saying but situations evolve.

HTC is a business...any business needs to grow and growth often requires change. What attracted you to AH back in 1999 when there were (who knows...2,000?) number of subscribers, has now, according to your perception, moved in another direction. It boils down to a business dynamic that changes over time, and HTC, in order to remain profitable...needs to change with it. Let's face it, Dale & Doug have been around a long time, and no doubt have the statistics and inside info needed to make qualified decisions as to where they need to progress the game...so as to stay solvent and remain in business.

Having to been to 6 Cons, and attending the Q&A's, I can tell you that Hitech and Pyro are sensitive and aware as to the wants of the majority. Every change made entails a consequence...some make players happy; others piss 'em off. Bottom line...nothing comes about short of well thought out planning.

A lot of us think back to the "good old days". Mine were the discovery of a WW2 flight sim for Mac users back in 1996...it was called Air Warrior/Mac. It lasted about 2 years, if that.  Keep the faith...life goes on and it usually gets better.

[shiv]

A lot tougher to find 1v1s now with the large radar rings that's for sure.

[Yeager]

Yeah, you cant fight this thing JB...in a macrocosm our fathers went through it.  Our fathers fathers went through it.  We are going through it.  Our kids will go through it.  Bottom line: Times change.  Either find your little niche in the current way of things and stick with it, or just go find some quiet little place and get the hell out of the way, watch time pass by.

Absolutely no point in fighting it.  Or complaining.  God knows we dont need any more whining.

[greens]

hope everything goes back to normal for you JB <S>

[palef]

Keep the faith...life goes on and it usually gets better.

Bahahahahahaaaa. Just keep taking those pills.

[froger]

some of the best beat downs i ever had was against you and #11.
hard to beat on a good day.

I have said in a prior post that what had my attention when i got here somewhere around tour 74 does not serve me well now
and i guess after reading some of the posts it has more to do with the way the game has changed over the years.
   the only thing i like to do with bombers now is shoot them down and with the current hoard like mentality, base capture is kind of a joke. seems that it takes so many people to take 1 base that there is not much of a fight, just a huge smack down and it's a minor miracle if the base goes down.

I keep changing how i play the game just to keep it fun but im running out of things to change.
  as a kid i dreamed about a game like this so i will always try to play at some level but it's like everything else in life, every time something is changed for the better it makes something else worse.




bla bla bla

froger

[Bruv119]

I think the main consequence of the changes in regards to strategy.  In the off hours a handful of guys can no longer quickly grab back what the horde took the night before.

When the numbers are scaled back it is easier for the defenders to cope.  When there are 20+ guys all working the same objective the defenders need to get up and in their faces early enough to break the hordes morale.   The extended radar gives you a little extra warning and they can't run NOE.  This is why you see the the first guy go augering into the radar as the first strike.

As a community it is more important than ever to help balance the teams so it doesn't happen every day.   I've changed my own squadron rules to facilitate more flexibility.  If others do the same then we can cure the problem ourselves.

yesterday we fought between the same 2 bases for 7 hours and not once did anyone resort to checking town for M3's neither side got close.  These drawn out battles is what I strive for and not endless cheap captures.

[DrBone1]

I think the main consequence of the changes in regards to strategy.  In the off hours a handful of guys can no longer quickly grab back what the horde took the night before.

When the numbers are scaled back it is easier for the defenders to cope.  When there are 20+ guys all working the same objective the defenders need to get up and in their faces early enough to break the hordes morale.   The extended radar gives you a little extra warning and they can't run NOE.  This is why you see the the first guy go augering into the radar as the first strike.

As a community it is more important than ever to help balance the teams so it doesn't happen every day.   I've changed my own squadron rules to facilitate more flexibility.  If others do the same then we can cure the problem ourselves.

yesterday we fought between the same 2 bases for 7 hours and not once did anyone resort to checking town for M3's neither side got close.  These drawn out battles is what I strive for and not endless cheap captures.

[grumpy37]

Well duh. We got old and there are new young players outnumbering us. What did you expect?  The game hasn't changed, the way it's played has changed. Surprise!

The TV shows and movies aren't any good these days either. Kids don't respect their elders. When I went to school I had to walk a mile in the snow and my parents beat me if I was late for dinner....

Give me a break. Don't blame the game because it doesn't match your memories of the halcyon days of yesteryear.

- oldman

I think if you read most of the responses thats exactly what is being said.  For the most part if you could bring back the mentality of AH1 with the current game platform AH would be hands down the best game on the market.  And im not just talking flight combat games.

[Ghosth]

This place has been nothing but change, in fact change has been the one constant that you could count on when talking about Aces High. I go back to the first beta, back in 99, and even then it was constantly changing.

The more they added, the more popular it got the faster it changed.
The more other sims around it collapsed, the bigger the community got, the faster it changed.

You can't stop it, and a sim or game that doesn't change is dead in less than 2 years.
Take that as a given.

The only thing you can do is either learn to work with the change, or walk away.

[BaldEagl]

JB, don't give up.  I took about a six month break last year.  Now, instead of playing 80-120 hours a month like I used to I get anywhere from 10-40 hours in.  I find the game generaly enjoayable when I get my limited play time and a few good fights are still out there.

I had a fight one day not too long ago with kappa while I think it was Slash just circled overhead.  Still enough to distract me on occasion but it was nice to see him let us have our one on one.

As to the game changing it is/was inevitable.  Back in AW there were only three capturable bases.  With no base capture element to speak of there really was nothing else but the fight.  There was no point in hoards and if there was one, well, it became a furball.  It's what all us old timers learned and why we are always longing for those days.

When AH came along with a full base capture/win the war mechanism it was inevitable that the game would change to accomodate those that were drawn by that element.  Most of us old guys didn't care and therefore early AH wasn't much different than what we were used to but over time we were/are being outnumbered by those drawn to this aspect of gameplay.  In that environment hoards and NOE's make perfect sense.

I'm thankful every day I play for the new guys who come into the game wanting to learn ACM and play dogfighter.  Unfortunately they are the few among the many but they are there.  As old timers we need to remain to encourage as many of these to continue in their development as possible and to carry forward the old dog-fighting traditions.

Don't give up.  Log on, jump around the map to find the type of fight you want then go teach a few youngsters a lesson or two.  

One more thing:  Last night Nits were haording a Bish base in pink.  I upped a 262.  I only managed two kills but by the time I left the entire hoard had vanished.  Once I left they reappeared and I made the mistake of re-arming and going back where I lawn-darted my 262.  Regardless, one player can bust up these hoards pretty effectively.

[The Fugitive]

I agree the game has changed, and for the better. More planes, more GV's, better graphics, tweaking the code for the game to run smoother, better servers so connectivity is stronger, terrain changes and so on, but had we the same "type" of people playing as we did 10 years ago this game would still be the same for all of us old timers. The thrill would still be there that we had back then, the drive to get better and so on.

The community change is the one that has hurt game play, but not HTC's pockets though   The "problem" if you want to call it that, is the goals of todays players are much more different than those of the players of the old days. The old days the game was all about the fights In fighters there were less gangs and HOs and more respect for the fight. You just didn't dive in on a 2 on 1 and make it 3 on one, never mind 6 and 7 on 1 like today. Sure there was spawn camping in the GVs, but more often than not the battles were in between the spawn and the base under attack much like furballs use to develop half way between two bases. Fights for bases lasted hours and used buffs, fighters, and GVs all at the same time. GVs rarely got bombed because the fighters and buffs were too busy fighting each other to look down at what was going on there.

Todays community is all for the kill, the quickest and easiest way possible. Spawn camping is the norm, and the only way they are busted is by dive bombing lanc's. Fighters run away from fights because they must get the bombs to the base so they can take another base to win the war TODAY.... like that ever happens. Bombers spend more time dive bombing targets.... and then bailing, than ever before.  Everything is "hurry up and do this, and hurry up and grab that. They don't play the game for the thrill of the game, they play it to win the war.

The recent changes have turn thing back a bit I think. Towns are so big and spread out that they can't be rolled as quick any more. NOE's are cut way back so again bases can't be rolled any more. I think some of these players are going to realize that to take bases well they are going to have to co-ordinate better, work as a team better, make everyone accountable for their bit of the mission and teach them how to do their bit of the mission. Gone are the days when you and 20 of your closes friends can come in and if total as a team you hit 30% of your targets you still get the base. No I think they will have to be much better at it than that, timing will come into play, the strategy I think is back into the game. Will they start having escorts for the bombers to get through, will the GV fights spring up away from the bases as teams work to flank enemy tanks, only time will tell.

I plan on sticking around to see how it all works out.

[maddafinga]

I think the main consequence of the changes in regards to strategy.  In the off hours a handful of guys can no longer quickly grab back what the horde took the night before.

When the numbers are scaled back it is easier for the defenders to cope.  When there are 20+ guys all working the same objective the defenders need to get up and in their faces early enough to break the hordes morale.   The extended radar gives you a little extra warning and they can't run NOE.  This is why you see the the first guy go augering into the radar as the first strike.

As a community it is more important than ever to help balance the teams so it doesn't happen every day.   I've changed my own squadron rules to facilitate more flexibility.  If others do the same then we can cure the problem ourselves.

yesterday we fought between the same 2 bases for 7 hours and not once did anyone resort to checking town for M3's neither side got close.  These drawn out battles is what I strive for and not endless cheap captures.

I'm totally with you on that one, the fights lately have been great and not just futilely trying to fend off base rolling hordes.