Are there enough players?

[moot]

Is Aces High trying to be a persistent war simulation or simply a furball game with nearly meaningless objective based gameplay?

AH is meant, IMHO, to be the best flight dynamics-oriented air combat sim.  The objective based gameplay is there because without it you get something like the WWI arena where the absolute freedom means that the quality of gameplay is 100% (not 99%) in players' hands.  The opposite of this is the special events where there's multiple layers of organization.  So the obvious thing was to automate that organization, like Combat Tour was meant to.  You can look that up and see for yourself what the next big part of AH was meant to be - in a nutshell a persistent "Career" mode with historically correct immersion like being rewarded/penalized for furballing randomly and getting your squaddies killed.  You had missions automatically rolling periodically, with AI filling in for players so that you always had e.g. huge bomber formations and lots of convoys and other stuff enriching the whole experience or even being the actual mission objectives - so that there was much more variety of missions.

This is one game trend that does apply to pretty much all games, and that's been true for a long time.  It's why the "epic" feeling of an old game like Wing Commander III, or a single player game like Final Fantasy, or even a game like Counter Strike, depends on someone somewhere providing either a story (WC & FF) or some setting (CS maps) for players to immerse themselves in and channel their gameplay thru.  In a single player game like WC-III or FF it's obvious - no one is going to play "aeris" or the guy in the item shop that you see 1 time in the whole game for 5 seconds tops.  No one is going to fly the C47 whose only purpose is basically to be cannon fodder for another player.  In a game like Counter Strike, the same thing is there too even if differently: the very high quality maps are what shapes the gameplay into something fun instead of something bland and repetitive. 

This substance is what's missing from AH when you fail to find that "magic recipe" that both leaves as much freedom as possible to players, but at the same time channels them in such a way that it produces quality gameplay.  AH is about the dynamics of air combat (ie not flipping switches and memorizing & following strict instrument protocols) -- so even in Combat Tour it was still about air combat rather than pre-flight checks and micromanaging a dozen gauges in your cockpit.  Combat Tour would actually teleport you to the action to save you the boredom of that part of "reality".

This is one of the fundamental things you gotta get right in the MA:  if you leave it all to players, nothing's going to happen. It's just going to turn into a slum, gameplay wise.  There needs to be some strat framework that catalyzes air combat, without infringing on or choking it - without either making it boring (forcing players to do combat patrols with no guarantee of action, or forcing them to do anything if too few of the "mandatory" choices are fun e.g. having a whole encyclopedic choice of dogfighting and other fighter jock missions, but no ground vehicle or ground attack/bomber missions) or unfair (that's what it was like before ENY or what it'd be like if all planes were unperked).

[CptTrips]

Well thought out.  Nicely put.

Regards,
Wab

AH is meant, IMHO, to be the best flight dynamics-oriented air combat sim.  The objective based gameplay is there because without it you get something like the WWI arena where the absolute freedom means that the quality of gameplay is 100% (not 99%) in players' hands.  The opposite of this is the special events where there's multiple layers of organization.  So the obvious thing was to automate that organization, like Combat Tour was meant to.  You can look that up and see for yourself what the next big part of AH was meant to be - in a nutshell a persistent "Career" mode with historically correct immersion like being rewarded/penalized for furballing randomly and getting your squaddies killed.  You had missions automatically rolling periodically, with AI filling in for players so that you always had e.g. huge bomber formations and lots of convoys and other stuff enriching the whole experience or even being the actual mission objectives - so that there was much more variety of missions.

This is one game trend that does apply to pretty much all games, and that's been true for a long time.  It's why the "epic" feeling of an old game like Wing Commander III, or a single player game like Final Fantasy, or even a game like Counter Strike, depends on someone somewhere providing either a story (WC & FF) or some setting (CS maps) for players to immerse themselves in and channel their gameplay thru.  In a single player game like WC-III or FF it's obvious - no one is going to play "aeris" or the guy in the item shop that you see 1 time in the whole game for 5 seconds tops.  No one is going to fly the C47 whose only purpose is basically to be cannon fodder for another player.  In a game like Counter Strike, the same thing is there too even if differently: the very high quality maps are what shapes the gameplay into something fun instead of something bland and repetitive. 

This substance is what's missing from AH when you fail to find that "magic recipe" that both leaves as much freedom as possible to players, but at the same time channels them in such a way that it produces quality gameplay.  AH is about the dynamics of air combat (ie not flipping switches and memorizing & following strict instrument protocols) -- so even in Combat Tour it was still about air combat rather than pre-flight checks and micromanaging a dozen gauges in your cockpit.  Combat Tour would actually teleport you to the action to save you the boredom of that part of "reality".

This is one of the fundamental things you gotta get right in the MA:  if you leave it all to players, nothing's going to happen. It's just going to turn into a slum, gameplay wise.  There needs to be some strat framework that catalyzes air combat, without infringing on or choking it - without either making it boring (forcing players to do combat patrols with no guarantee of action, or forcing them to do anything if too few of the "mandatory" choices are fun e.g. having a whole encyclopedic choice of dogfighting and other fighter jock missions, but no ground vehicle or ground attack/bomber missions) or unfair (that's what it was like before ENY or what it'd be like if all planes were unperked).

[DREDIOCK]

Yup.  Look what happens when there's a good fight going and the fun police drop the hangars.  It's only for 15 minutes, right?  Yet the vitriol flows.  And that's only at one base.  Now imagine that effect being applied to the entire map.

Wiley.

But Im not talking about killing off all the planes for an entire country. Only a select few. This wouldnt prevent people form upping. Only those wishing to up a certain plane. There are more then enough folks who fly a variety of different planes that this would have minimal impact on upping planes.

For example. You telling me the arena would fall apart if one side for example couldn't up spit 16s for 15 min?
AH has some major advantages over AW when it comes to this kind of targeting. Firstly a vastly improved plane selection. Again as an example. How many variants of the spit do we have now? Secondly a wider variety of people who fly a wider variety of planes.

This would have no more a disruption then ENY. With the added benefit that it would only last 15 min.

With all due respect to HT (and I do mean that). The only ones I remember disliking the spit factory targets we the ones that only flew spits. When I talk with other former AWers. One of the things that consistently gets brought up and reminisced about are the runs to the spit factories.

Now ok granted some of the strat did leave a bit something to be desired. If a maint shack was down you never knew you were going to up in a plane that was leaking oil already or not for example. And this could certainly suck for the front line furballers so I kinda get that. On the other hand it did add a sense of realism.
Cant very well fix a plane if the building holding the parts is destroyed.

Perhaps there is a workable work around for both.
tie strat to a zone type system. Where only bases  would be effected within a certain zone.
 Make the factories for say, heavy bombers. This should keep the buff guys at each others throats. Both attacking and defending those targets.Gives em something to do and a reason to do it. Yet would do little to effect the furball crowd other then to maybe. Rid themselves of the threat of bombers taking all the hangars down. LOL

For strats. tie those into zones as well. Have a re arm pad for re arming and refueling, and if you want your plane repaired without towering out. You pull into the hangar.

If the strats are hit in that bases area. You cant re arm on the rearming pad or repair in the hangars without towering out.
Again. Has an effect without really hurting the furballers. Yet gives people a reason to hit or defend.

As it stands now the strat targets are pointless other then because they are there. It makes infinitely more sense and takes a hell of alot less time form a bombing perspective to just drop the hangars at a base with a furball.

When buffs do head to strats. Few bother to up to stop them. No reason to. Eventually this has to get pretty boring for buff pilots when if your lucky maybe a plane or two will come after you. Might as well just play MSFS and fly a 747 around.

I personally beleive (And buff drivers out there can either confirm or deny this) that buff pilots actually want to have to fight their way into a target. thats part of the thrill of it. They also want to have an effect on something and not just farm perks. Thats why the local bases are far more popular then the strats. Again. whats the point of flying all that way when few are going to try to stop you. To hit a target that for all intents and purposes.. doesnt do anything?

[ACE]

Grizz I honestly think that this forum is nothing better than a high school.  So much drama BS.

[The Fugitive]

I would argue that World War 2 Online has as many players online as Aces High does and it's been around for quite a while. I would also argue that World War 2 Online had way more players at some point. Planetside failed because SOE is retarded (hello SWG).


People don't take out strategic targets because it takes only a few hours of just zerging bases to win the map with the current "war." Why can't the game require one country to take a capitol before they win? Those clusters of factories/cities/capitol look awesome and I'd love to fight in/around it, but it NEVER happens. There is no war currently, it feels like a battlefield map where you take maybe two or three bases and you win (I know it's more than two or three, but not by much). This is silly especially with how easy it is to fly under radar with 20 or less people and immediately take down every spawn building before defenders can even spawn onto the runway to attempt a defense. Attack orders like in World War 2 Online would allow defenders to actually defend. I'm not going to repeat my reasoning behind it, but if you care, you can look back when I talked about it a couple pages ago. I don't know what the sequential base order thing was, but attack orders sounds different from what that was.

Unlike some, I do read the whole thread before I think about whether or not I'll reply. WWII OnLine came out after Aces High did, I still have the original box for the game WWII OnLine. Back then you could only fight in certain areas as long as there weren't too many people there. Too many people created lag so they got around it by herding people to different areas.... servers. The air game sucked, and there was so many cheat and loop holes that it wasn't in the least bit fun. I think I lasted 6 months there.

In the old days here the players made the game what it was, much like they do now. In the old days you had mostly older guys with a deep interest in WWII. Pretending to live those days back in the 40's is how the game was played. You fought battles, you made plans, you recruited other squads/player to help you achieve goals. The goals included capture, porking, fighter sweeps to look for counter attacks, and yes even strat runs. I ran more goons to HQ than I think I ever did to capture bases.

Todays players are much more of the do it now type, get'er done! I'll bet you could ask people which countries fought for the Axis, and which for the Allies and half wouldn't come close with out the help of Google. It's not that they are stupid, it's that it is unimportant. They don't care who was on which side, it doesn't help them roll bases so why bother with it.

I think the game needs more structure, to get players away from just running all out grabbing bases as fast as they can. Maybe instead of "wining the war" for perks the "message of the day" can have orders. Territory that must be captured, intel about which bases the enemy may be after, perk awards for achieving these things by a certain time. More goals to split the hordes up.

[PFactorDave]

Grizz I honestly think that this forum is nothing better than a Jr high school.  So much drama BS.

There, that's even more accurate.

[Hoff]

Unlike some, I do read the whole thread before I think about whether or not I'll reply. WWII OnLine came out after Aces High did, I still have the original box for the game WWII OnLine. Back then you could only fight in certain areas as long as there weren't too many people there. Too many people created lag so they got around it by herding people to different areas.... servers. The air game sucked, and there was so many cheat and loop holes that it wasn't in the least bit fun. I think I lasted 6 months there.

In the old days here the players made the game what it was, much like they do now. In the old days you had mostly older guys with a deep interest in WWII. Pretending to live those days back in the 40's is how the game was played. You fought battles, you made plans, you recruited other squads/player to help you achieve goals. The goals included capture, porking, fighter sweeps to look for counter attacks, and yes even strat runs. I ran more goons to HQ than I think I ever did to capture bases.

Todays players are much more of the do it now type, get'er done! I'll bet you could ask people which countries fought for the Axis, and which for the Allies and half wouldn't come close with out the help of Google. It's not that they are stupid, it's that it is unimportant. They don't care who was on which side, it doesn't help them roll bases so why bother with it.

I think the game needs more structure, to get players away from just running all out grabbing bases as fast as they can. Maybe instead of "wining the war" for perks the "message of the day" can have orders. Territory that must be captured, intel about which bases the enemy may be after, perk awards for achieving these things by a certain time. More goals to split the hordes up.

Take out the first paragraph and your argument becomes much more solid. You constantly berate me for being young, yet you're the only one slinging insults around. I never said World War 2 Online came out first, nor did I say that it had a flawless launch. What I do know about World War 2 Online is that they have an actual persistent war with strategic targets that matter. I also know that at their peak, they had way more players than Aces High. The game you are talking about didn't really exist for very long. Comparing the old versions of both games to each other is silly. It would be like comparing Starcraft: Brood War to Warcraft II even though Starcraft II and Warcraft III are already out. It just doesn't make any sense and doesn't add anything to the discussion.

I remember playing old FPS games on a 56k modem. I remember playing MMORPGs where the players had to make their own content (sandbox). EVE online is still around with that model and has done nothing but grow over the years, but it doesn't have anywhere near the numbers that the major "theme park" MMOs have where a lot of the content is scripted. What I'm trying to say is that games evolve or they become extremely niche. Again, the question is do they want this game to have a small and loyal playerbase or try to attract a larger crowd?

As for being history buffs. I'm fairly confident in my World War 2 knowledge, but that doesn't mean I want to have a full war simulation. I want the planes to behave historically, but I don't want to go on multiple hour long sorties with the possibility of not even seeing an enemy. Snapshots are available for those that do. The current bases are spaced really closely together such that you have to try really hard to fly for more than ten minutes toward an enemy base and not find an enemy. I like that, but there are times where I may want to sit back and watch the ballgame while auto climbing in a bomber and go bomb something. Adding in some real strategic targets could possibly increase the number of people flying high level bombing attacks and since they will show up on radar and have to fly way behind enemy lines, fighters would be able to intercept them. This could lead to some interesting fights to go along with the base fights. I'd also like to see some actual flak guns on the fields. The factory that produces them could make for a good strategic target. The flak would make it much harder for people to simply swarm a base. A high altitude bomber would have to take the flak out before the smaller planes could get near the field. Taking out the strategic factory could accomplish the same thing, as could ground vehicles or cruiser guns.

That brings me to my realization of the problem. My solutions may not be the best choice or the most popular but the problem remains. The problem is that currently, the best way to win the war is to take the bases as fast as possible and ignore strategic targets. The fastest way to take bases is to zerg them. It's very hard to take out all the bombers and fighter bombers using short range AA (they fire their rockets and drop their bombs before you can come close to killing them) and your own fighters. It's very very difficult to counter a horde of fighter bombers hellbent on beelining towards the base with their ords. So the problem is that to win the war, there are no other options than to take bases and taking bases is best accomplished by zerging. There needs to be more options to take bases and there needs to be more options for base defense. Cutting off supplies, large flak guns, destroying factories for said flak guns, etc.

[STEELE]

Combat Tour sounds like an extremely immersive and fresh idea, I for one believe it would bring new guys flooding in & old players running back.  Here's hoping that it still comes out. 
 I like the Idea of an "AI General" too, for our current game,  Perks for attacking assigned targets
could definitely increase gameplay quality, and help with the horde mentality.  Eventually, a lot of the "Hordelings" find out that hordes=nothing but assists and killshoooting, whereas following orders will fill their perk coffers.   

[BiPoLaR]

To the OP. Those days a long gone. They left the day HT neutered TT and added that goofy arena cap thing.

[BaldEagl]

Speaking of bombers I quit flying them and I used to do so all the time however I did fly the new Mossies once and the B-29's once just to try them out.  Being a loner I used to like to fly strat runs.  Now with the big complexes located right next to the Me-163 bases I'm not really excited to fly two hours to get shot down by a couple of 163's and climbing to my normal 20K+ to hit a few hangers doesn't really do much for me.

In fact the movement of the strats made a huge difference in both individual and group gameplay.  If I had logged on with 45 people and no real fights as with last weekend I might have taken a GV or a bomber to a strat and still had some fun, maybe even drawing an enemy or two as I did so, but as it is those options are gone.  It used to be fun to take an Skd or a PT to the strats and try rocketing them; all lost with the changes to the strats.

I really just want something to do when I log on and forgive me for being selfish but I'd like that to be more than one out of three times I log on.

[Wiley]

There are more then enough folks who fly a variety of different planes that this would have minimal impact on upping planes.

There are also more than enough folks who fly a single aircraft obsessively that this would have maximal impact on upping planes.

For example. You telling me the arena would fall apart if one side for example couldn't up spit 16s for 15 min?

Nope, I'm telling you people would be upset over it.  Some would grab a different plane, some would log, some would quit.

AH has some major advantages over AW when it comes to this kind of targeting. Firstly a vastly improved plane selection. Again as an example. How many variants of the spit do we have now? Secondly a wider variety of people who fly a wider variety of planes.

This would have no more a disruption then ENY. With the added benefit that it would only last 15 min.

*shrug*  I'm just saying it's a bad idea to put the country's ability to fly a certain plane in the hands of the other side.  I can pretty easily envision guys with a lot of time on their hands obsessively keeping the factories down.

Now ok granted some of the strat did leave a bit something to be desired. If a maint shack was down you never knew you were going to up in a plane that was leaking oil already or not for example. And this could certainly suck for the front line furballers so I kinda get that. On the other hand it did add a sense of realism.
Cant very well fix a plane if the building holding the parts is destroyed.

Realistic != fun in some cases, this would be one of them.

Wiley.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

*shrug*  I'm just saying it's a bad idea to put the country's ability to fly a certain plane in the hands of the other side.  I can pretty easily envision guys with a lot of time on their hands obsessively keeping the factories down.

Realistic != fun in some cases, this would be one of them.

Wiley.

Aren't you the one who just defended massive hordes with the argument 'you have to learn to counter them' and now you can't even stop a couple of players porking fields "obsessively"? LOL!

[Wiley]

Aren't you the one who just defended massive hordes with the argument 'you have to learn to counter them' and now you can't even stop a couple of players porking fields "obsessively"? LOL!

Not sure about your first comment, I don't recall crusading in favor of massive hordes saying you just have to learn to counter them...  I've often stated I like large fights as opposed to smaller fights, but that's irrelevant in any case.

What is the 'me' implied in what we're talking about here?  I'm just saying with the amount of nearly OCD people who are willing to keep upping to bomb and bail a field to keep ords/radar down, I could easily see that kind of logic being applied to a factory that when down, disables a plane type.  I'm also stating I believe that would be detrimental to gameplay.  It ain't rocket science.

Wiley.

[vafiii]

Most nights, other than Tuesday, I spend a lot of time looking for the enemy rather than engaging the enemy. Since I only have 2 hours a night to play this is not the best use of my time. Even Friday and Saturday nights in the MA are boring as the squad ops and special events drain 300 or more players from the MA. Wouldn't it make sense to at least extend the "off hours" concept to Friday and Saturday nights, not to mention permanently? It seems you need at least 300 players in an arena to have a steady dose of action and most often than not there are much less than 300 players in the split arenas. Just do the math, 200 players divided by 3 teams is only 66 players per team. If half those players are in GV's, field guns or bombers that doesn't leave many players for air combat. And that's what this is all about, isn't it?

[Shuffler]

Or fly in an arena where folks want to fight. All it takes is like minded folks and two opposing bases.