TOWN TOO BIG FOR AVERAGE SQUAD

[bustr]

Reduce the area of buildings needed to have the town down to the core groups on the intersecting main street but add a GV hanger and its guns just across the river as the final bit of the takedown requirment. Or add a small factory sector across the river from the town center defended by a GV hanger that has to be taken down along with only the factory sector. Town buildings optional collateral damgeable but place a manned ack at the map room. Remove the GV hanger from the airfeilds or only enable M16, Ostie and Whirble while putting in some 17 pounder positions on the perifery of the airfeild. Change all of the ack on the airfeild to manned ack so we stop hiding in the ack. Increase the auto ack for the town to delay taking it to help defenders get airborn. Funny didn't AH1 towns have such killer ack everyone whined to get it dumbed down.....

Have a village, town and GV Hanger, and town and GV hanger with factory sector.

1. Village with small airfeild and GV hanger on the airfeild. Kill the village take the maproom.
2. Town with medium airfeild put GV hanger in the Town. Kill the Town and GV hanger take the maproom.
3. Town and Factory with Large airfeild with GV hanger protecting Factory sector across the river. Kill the center of Town, Factory, GV hanger, take the map room.

So didn't HiTech give us this realistic town so that bomber pilots whould have a relaistic goal to realisticly make a contribution to the game? But, the complaints indicate the primary manner of taking a town is with a small number of fighter bombers who only want to expend a minimum of effort. Fly a short distance. And collect the maximum number of easy vulchs then go home and land a big kill text string in the company of their online drinking buddys. So the more realistic HiTech makes the game because it is Oh so 10 years ago graphics, textures and immersion wise, the more complicated like real life it becomes to achive objectives and the more whines because it just takes too much effort to be enjoyable.

You gents do realise this is your basic complaint now after previously complaining the game had gotten too gamey, too hoardy, stale and easy?

[oTRALFZo]

Agreed, I have noticed dwindling numbers also.  Call me a nut, but if HTC doesn't fix this imbalance, the game is going to die.

Its been weird. Prior to the new town layout, you had the 20+ horde trying to take bases. Seems now that the 20 went to 30. True that the difficulty level made it so "base sneaks" are a little less common then they were before but as time goes on, it has been apparent that you are either in the horde, or fighting the horde. The norm each time I log in is to see a blob of green at one side of a map with a blob of red off in another part.

I honestly think its not all about town layouts or how hard things are but more on players choice on where and how they decide to play. No matter what game you are playing, people have a natural tendency to gravitate to where the #s are in their favor. Ive been playing for a while to know better that although I expect to be shot down every sortie, I don't particularly "like it". I don't think anyone does. So when that poor sap is screaming for help at a capped field, you can say to yourself "Ill stay where I am, I wont get ganged down there". In my opinion, I would love to see the future of the game to focus on the following:

Rewards: Only way to keep balance with fights is to promote defense. Find a way to encourage and reward the guys that encounter others with the huge disadvantage.  Just a shot in the dark idea is kind of spinning off the area ENY concept. Perhaps labeling targeted areas as hot, warm or cold or even labeling the health of the field depending on badly it is torn up. Either by adding more perks or even better list it as a score stat to give people incentive to put themselves at a disadvantage.

Strategy: Nothing makes any field stand out. What I missed when we changed the strat system is the fact that no base is as or more important than the other. I loved the old zone base concept that if they pushed you back far enough, there was huge fights for the zone bases. That's all gone now.
We really should implement the difficulty of base captures depended on the size of the airfield as well as the significance. Perhaps 2 towns per large airfields or more troops for capture that was presented in another thread.

Just my $.02

[oceans11]

Not one person in our squad has  a problem flying long distances is bombers to pop one target , that's never been a problem .
What is a problem is when you cannot take a base in the time it is down .
How about making the towns match with the type of field.
We have three different  size of fields but only one size town 
Large field =Large town
Medium Field =Medium Town
Small, Field =Small Town

Or keep it the same and increase down time

[4deck]

Towns fine.

[Kazaa]

I would make the town on the 'medium' level versus 'hard'.

Not everybody are furballers.  I actually enjoy furballing, and working with my squad to take bases.  100% furballing gets old and we need a variety to keep the game interesting.  By the way: Furballers don't give a ratz buttocks if a base is lost or won.

I did notice that since the new graphics came out - less people play.  Correlation or coincidence?  

The lower end graphic ground textures are really poor, a lot worse then the previous "standard" textures.

Caps are killing the game, Snailman's chart is proof of that. Hell, I even see numbers lower than 60 at current euro-morning time. It use to never go below 90 4 years ago.

[1Boner]

Consider yourself lucky that there are towns to take at all.

They're putting quite a bit of effort into killing that part of the game.

[Lusche]

Hell, I even see numbers lower than 60 at current euro-morning time. It use to never go below 90 4 years ago.

Last friday, ~ 12am, LWO had 36 players. 90 used to be the absolute lower end for many years  

I can't say that I have "proven" caps are killing the game - but they certainly don't help at all  when the number of players are lower than before but the cap mechanism is staying the same.


On the towns: I like them both graphically as well as their impact on game (even though I can't anymore take a town down myself quick enough before the enemy takes notice  )
However, I do think that we may have reached the upper end of capturring requirements difficulty.

[Lusche]

How about making the towns match with the type of field.
We have three different  size of fields but only one size town 
Large field =Large town
Medium Field =Medium Town
Small, Field =Small Town

Some variation like this would be great,. Even better: Get the zone base system back, and make the zone bases the largest towns. 

[1Boner]

However, I do think that we may have reached the upper end of capturring requirements difficulty.

It used to be alot of fun defending a base.

Not anymore.

They used to come in managable groups.

They almost HAVE to come in a horde now.

Yaaaaaaaaaay. what fun!

[Getback]

I would make the town on the 'medium' level versus 'hard'.

Not everybody are furballers.  I actually enjoy furballing, and working with my squad to take bases.  100% furballing gets old and we need a variety to keep the game interesting.  By the way: Furballers don't give a ratz buttocks if a base is lost or won.

I did notice that since the new graphics came out - less people play.  Correlation or coincidence? 

If the numbers are dwindling it may be because of the economy.

[Lusche]

If the numbers are dwindling it may be because of the economy.

More competition. In the past, AH had been one of the very few real MMOG out there. Nowadays the  market is exploding. RPG's, shooters, business simulations. Fantasy, science fiction...   a myriad of browser games... Many free or seemingly "free games" with micropayment

[oceans11]

It used to be alot of fun defending a base.

Not anymore.

They used to come in managable groups.

They almost HAVE to come in a horde now.

Yaaaaaaaaaay. what fun!

Agreed.
If this was the answer to the larger squads its worked.
But it also crushed any chance of smaller squads having any type of challenging fun .
We had something to look forward to. Even with the older style  town we had to most of the times get help from other squads
Since this change it has become almost impossible
and trying to co-ordinate anything with any other squad is impossible since most just want a giant fur ball
They will hit a town.............. just to get uppers............ and then that pretty much has ruined it for any other squad wanting to take that town
There is no timer showing you when it was hit so........ if you start where they left off you have no way of knowing if those buildings are going to pop
Now that was the same in the older town yes but now its a given that its a bust before you even start , so what happens
no one bothers
Hence that part of the game has been removed

[CAP1]

It improved the game imo.  More difficulty was needed to make it more challenging.  It was entirely too easy before.  I still have little adventures finding my way around in those hedgerow mazes.

didn't we capture a base or two a few weeks ago, with resistance, and less than 10 of us?

[CAP1]

Agreed, I have noticed dwindling numbers also.  Call me a nut, but if HTC doesn't fix this imbalance, the game is going to die.

could this be a combination of bad economy, and computers what were struggling to handle the old graphics....and this update just put em over the edge?

[Knite]

Could always make it so that troops take down a building, 1 troop per 1 building... so that if you really can't find that last building, you can drop a bunch of troops on the town to take it out. Might make for some interesting mass goon drops though. hehe.