Is this what Hitech wants?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Every online game has bullies, just like the playground.

In EVE Online, there are people that would literally fly 5 tiny $100,000 ships up to your $30,000,000 industrial ship and all fire at once.  That did enough damage to lose your industrial ship before the "game police" (named Concord) would come and blow up their ships for shooting someone in "High Security Space."

Fair?  Nope.

No matter what you do, there is always someone out to smash your ice cream cone.

And you just submit to this? Why?

Exactly.  Go to a different base or leave the arena, the horde will get bored and dissipate.

Unfortunately the horde like most mobs, consists of insecure individuals who feel powerful only as a part of a group. Then the group dynamics enhance negative behaviour. The problems arise from psychology, unfortunately

[Zoney]

I saw 70 plane B24 formations just recently. Carpet bombing the field down in one pass. This leaves no defence. No recourse. Just watch the mob roll over.

It's online bullying. And it fits all the social implications, too.

Wow! That sounds like fun.  If I had seen that I would have had a ball attacking them.  I certainly would not expect to kill them all and therefore stop the hoard or thwart their base closure but just like the single pilot in WW2 who came up against one or more enemies, you take your victories where you can, and here in the game have some fun doing it.  You said "just watch the mob roll over".  Well maybe you could not win the war or stop the hoard but you could have attacked and gotten a kill, or died trying.

[SectorNine50]

And you just submit to this? Why?

Unfortunately the horde like most mobs, consists of insecure individuals who feel powerful only as a part of a group. Then the group dynamics enhance negative behaviour. The problems arise from psychology, unfortunately

Yes... Because it's part of how online gaming works.  You are playing with real people, real people are sometimes amazinhunks.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Wow! That sounds like fun.  If I had seen that I would have had a ball attacking them.  I certainly would not expect to kill them all and therefore stop the hoard or thwart their base closure but just like the single pilot in WW2 who came up against one or more enemies, you take your victories where you can, and here in the game have some fun doing it.  You said "just watch the mob roll over".  Well maybe you could not win the war or stop the hoard but you could have attacked and gotten a kill, or died trying.

Lol what do you think people tried to do? Unless you're in a hyper perk plane like 163, there's no way you even dent a formation like that without being blown clear from the sky. Even if you had 10 defenders with enough alt, you could do nothing. N E G A T I V E retuns folks, no reason to attack such a fleet if you know it will only end up in death or damage without any visible result.

Again, if I knew that each B24 I blow out of the sky would actually reduce their resources and force the next wave to return in, say, bostons, it would give a whole new incentive to the defence.

Maybe it boils down to people who join the mob and make things worse for others and people who stand up to the mob and loathe it

[moot]

Yep that's exactly what I was looking for with the attrition. When a locust storm eats up the resources, the locust storm in nature dies of hunger. Here it has infinite resources to roll over.

So the goal is to replace the current ENY horde/imbalance limiter with a very similar mechanic but with much stricter penalty?  Because right now you've got almost the same incentive (switch sides to fly low ENY planes). 
You would also need to void attrited planes as soon as things rebalance, or you'd have a time lag of attrition effects relative to actual balance.  Unlike the current ENY system which is always exactly proportionate to actual balance. Otherwise you'd have a bit of slop in the mechanics: players who would find themselves (e.g. immediately after an unbalance > rebalance event) unduly denied some rides... and at best switching sides to be able to fly them, which like I said initiates a new imbalance trend. 

I think adding a complement incentive device to current ENY system might be better - like the local perk multiplier scheme: varying perk points for kills/objects destroyed proportional to ratio of friendlies in range.

Add something like the automated practice/training system I described and things would probably significantly improve.

Yes... Because it's part of how online gaming works.  You are playing with real people, real people are sometimes amazinhunks.

Your arguments amount to: give up and settle for whatever the teeming masses decide for you.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

So the goal is to replace the current ENY horde/imbalance limiter with a very similar mechanic but with much stricter penalty?  Because right now you've got almost the same incentive (switch sides to fly low ENY planes).  
You would also need to void attrited planes as soon as things rebalance, or you'd have a time lag of attrition effects relative to actual balance.  Unlike the current ENY system which is always exactly proportionate to actual balance. Otherwise you'd have a bit of slop in the mechanics: players who would find themselves (e.g. immediately after an unbalance > rebalance event) unduly denied some rides... and at best switching sides to be able to fly them, which like I said initiates a new imbalance trend.  

I think adding a complement incentive device to current ENY system might be better - like the local perk multiplier scheme: varying perk points for kills/objects destroyed proportional to ratio of friendlies in range.

My thought was only that in this case like in many others, one could take advice from natures way of handling things. If a locust storm happens, it eats itself to death inevitably. If it didn't it would destroy all life on earth in a matter of months. Luckily the situation on MA is not THAT bad lol!

[Zoney]

Lol what do you think people tried to do? Unless you're in a hyper perk plane like 163, there's no way you even dent a formation like that without being blown clear from the sky. Even if you had 10 defenders with enough alt, you could do nothing. N E G A T I V E retuns folks, no reason to attack such a fleet if you know it will only end up in death or damage without any visible result.

<S> Then I have not explained my point of view clearly.  Take your kills where you can and fly away and land.  Fight from an advantage, do not get caught up in a furball you are hopelessly outnumbered in.  If its a giant bomber group, kill a couple and fly away, maybe you will drag a few fighters with and leave your friends with a little less opposition.

I know we all fly differently, well I think each of us is capable of flying differently for any given situation.  Here, in this game, victory is measured by killing one guy at a time.  Do that, quit worrying about what everyone else is doing or complaining about.  I fly alot, at anytime PM me and I will take you along as a wingy to show you my perspective.  Do that with a few guys, learn a bit more, and have fun.

Remember the saying "Kill em all and let God sort em out" ?  Well this is not quite that, just kill one of them, then go kill one more of them, then go kill one more of them.......ad infinitum..................

It is possible.

[Ardy123]

Lol what do you think people tried to do? Unless you're in a hyper perk plane like 163, there's no way you even dent a formation like that without being blown clear from the sky. Even if you had 10 defenders with enough alt, you could do nothing. N E G A T I V E retuns folks, no reason to attack such a fleet if you know it will only end up in death or damage without any visible result.

Maybe it boils down to people who join the mob and make things worse for others and people who stand up to the mob and loathe it

MrRiplEy,
It has been done, most of the time if you set up your attack properly, the gangtwits won't know how to deal with it. Often it will cause them to scatter and their 'operation' looses organization and steam. Other times, if others see that you are successful, they will join in. Sure, 50v1 isn't going to result in stopping the base take, but 50v1 can quickly turn into a more manageable 20v50, then the attackers leave because they have resistance and they would rather only fight ack. Furthermore, the gang mentality goes both ways, all sides have them, so once a defense operation gets some steam, a horde of green will develop around your location.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

MrRiplEy,
It has been done, most of the time if you set up your attack properly, the gangtwits won't know how to deal with it. Often it will cause them to scatter and their 'operation' looses organization and steam. Other times, if others see that you are successful, they will join in. Sure, 50v1 isn't going to result in stopping the base take, but 50v1 can quickly turn into a more manageable 20v50, then the attackers leave because they have resistance and they would rather only fight ack. Furthermore, the gang mentality goes both ways, all sides have them, so once a defense operation gets some steam, a horde of green will develop around your location.

Oh puhleeze there's absolutely nothing you can do against a 70 bomber fleet. Even a group of 3 is deadly for a lone attacker.

When nits did the P47 horde to the HQ that was different, we could up 163s and blow them off the sky even though they managed to disable the HQ anyway. But in regular plane and 70 B24's.. forget about it.

[Ardy123]

Oh puhleeze there's absolutely nothing you can do against a 70 bomber fleet. Even a group of 3 is deadly for a lone attacker.

When nits did the P47 horde to the HQ that was different, we could up 163s and blow them off the sky even though they managed to disable the HQ anyway. But in regular plane and 70 B24's.. forget about it.

Try it some time...

DocCH will back me up, I remember about 3 weeks ago the knits were ganging the f out of a port on Titanic Tuesday, so I upped a 262 from a neighboring base, and made 2 flights, the first bagging 7 kills and the second bagging 8. Both times, I'd have a horde of 50+ trying to kill me. It was fun, intense and comical all at the same time.

vSky and vAugering have ran into me many times as the lone or the very few defenders, where I come in high, and kill many of them before RTB or dieing. It it possible, it just takes some planning ahead of time.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Try it some time...

DocCH will back me up, I remember about 3 weeks ago the knits were ganging the f out of a port on Titanic Tuesday, so I upped a 262 from a neighboring base, and made 2 flights, the first bagging 7 kills and the second bagging 8. Both times, I'd have a horde of 50+ trying to kill me. It was fun, intense and comical all at the same time.

vSky and vAugering have ran into me many times as the lone or the very few defenders, where I come in high, and kill many of them before RTB or dieing. It it possible, it just takes some planning ahead of time.

So you have perks to burn it seems if you are willing to fly the 262 into overwhelming odds. If you have collected enough perks for 2 planes in the last couple years you might think differently on whether to dive into the horde or not. Oh yeah and I fly P40B and the brewster too so don't tell me about getting perks! I just don't have the hours to spend on them.

So in this case I would have to balance risking losing 50% of my accumulated perks in a risky 30:1 sortie that would achieve absolutely nothing in the end. Not very appealing to me. Just last week I fought 26:1 (according to film viewer) in a tempest and landed 6 kills. So I've done it. Yet it did not even dent the attackers.

[PJ_Godzilla]

I was going to say, some fellow knights and I repulsed a nice horde attack the other night. We weren't even part of the same squad or organized but several of us saw a large approaching DAR and upped. Enough of us arrived on scene to have sufficient alt and numbers to tear the multi-box assault to pieces and kill most of the escorts. I killed two lancs m'self, then landed. It was one of the most fun ad hoc MA actions I've ever been part of - not least because we sent 'em home with enlarged and bloody pupenschutes. It happens. Every night is slightly different.

[Ack-Ack]

 You said "just watch the mob roll over".  Well maybe you could not win the war or stop the hoard but you could have attacked and gotten a kill, or died trying.

As you've seen from other threads, this same issue has been coming up in the MW arena as well about how the hords milk run an undefended base or steam roll over a base with little defensive opposition.  On Sunday I hop into the MW arena and see that there are 12 Bishops, 2 Knights and 10 Rookies and the fights are between a single Bish and Rook base, no action at all on the Knight front.  I switch to the Bish side since it was their field being attacked and helped repel the Rookie attackers and then assisted in pushing the Rookies back to their base and flew CAP over it.  Once we pushed the Rookies back to their base, they stopped taking off and made no attempts at all to defend their base which we were now attacking.  Instead, the Rookies start to whine about being horded and how the Bish were milk running undefended bases.  I look at the roster and see the numbers are still relatively even and instead of defending their base from attack, the Rookies moved and were milk running an undefended Knight vehicle base.  The Rookies, instead of whining about being "steam rolled by the hord" could have tried to defend their base but I guess the allure of attacking an undefended base was too appealing to the Rookies.

ack-ack

[Ardy123]

So you have perks to burn it seems if you are willing to fly the 262 into overwhelming odds. If you have collected enough perks for 2 planes in the last couple years you might think differently on whether to dive into the horde or not. Oh yeah and I fly P40B and the brewster too so don't tell me about getting perks! I just don't have the hours to spend on them.

So in this case I would have to balance risking losing 50% of my accumulated perks in a risky 30:1 sortie that would achieve absolutely nothing in the end. Not very appealing to me. Just last week I fought 26:1 (according to film viewer) in a tempest and landed 6 kills. So I've done it. Yet it did not even dent the attackers.

There is are many fallacies in your argument....

1) I didn't die either time, so I lost no perks.
2) Although I've been playing for over 2 years, I stopped playing for a while and canceled my account and lost all my perks. Its been 6 mo since I've came back, so
thats 6 mo of perks not 2 years.
3) It did achieve something.... I found it fun and the overwhelming odds got my adrenaline pumping. One mistake and I'm dead.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

There is are many fallacies in your argument....

1) I didn't die either time, so I lost no perks.
2) Although I've been playing for over 2 years, I stopped playing for a while and canceled my account and lost all my perks. Its been 6 mo since I've came back, so
thats 6 mo of perks not 2 years.
3) It did achieve something.... I found it fun and the overwhelming odds got my adrenaline pumping. One mistake and I'm dead.

Talking about fallacies you kinda argumented against your point 1 in point 3. Point 2 may only show that you have played countless hours and gained perks to burn again, people with 0.25 k/d have to spend 10 years to achieve any kind of buffer and that is only if they don't use them lol

You have to remember that the vast majority on MA get below 1 k/d ratios. They're the backbone of defence that can up a pony in a horde at will but will think twice about upping a perkie as the underdog.

The way I see it, the whole reward system is reverse of what it should be. The players who need perk planes the least get to use them. The players who can't cut the mustard even in the regular models are deprived of the higher performing planes. This creates further imbalance instead of harmonizing the field.

Perhaps the honor of getting to fly the P40B only should be the ultimate goal. Only the coolest kid on the track could achieve enough kills in it in order to keep the perk count (rank) low enough. What other dominance is there except to kill a noob in 262 with your mighty 202.

OTOH an arena full of 262s wouldn't be nice either. Hmmm.