Great new ideas for strategic evolution of game

[grizz441]

Anybody have any?  

The strategy is mundane and static.  Shoot town, take base, rinse repeat, win war, boot to desktop.  To use an analogy, I would equate it to playing a game of monopoly, except instead of a board with real estate, draws, go to jails, cool game pieces, fake money etc., it's just a blank board with nothing.  Roll the dice first one to get around the board wins.  The game needs more strategy.  Strats that have impact, factories and cities that actually matter, objects that when destroyed unlock other things that can now be destroyed.  Incentive to plan missions, incentive to defend against missions, incentive to get involved in the war!  The game has all the pieces it needs to actually be very fun.  100+ fully modeled aircraft, tanks, and carrier fleets.  Yet no dynamic strategy?

This is why I just fly around shooting bad guys.  I have no incentive to get involved in the war, because I find it incredibly dull.

[ink]

too bad they ditched Combat tour....

I think if they made the strats the source of the "war" it would be far better...IE  you cant take town until the Strats for that town are down or destroyed to a certain point.

destroying Strats and factories should have an impact on the war, what can be flown from that field how much fuel can be taken....ECT ECT

[Lusche]

Anybody have any?

Yes, every once in a while I do. But most of the time they are crap to begin with, and if not, they still could kill AH as likely as they could "help" it.  


I think there are two basic problems that are part of the OP. One is about individual player's longtime motivation, the other is about creating a gameplay that can (in best case) please many different people and results in as many subscribers at the same time - which doesn't necessarily mean to keep every single player as long as possible. As a matter of fact, player while do burn it, no matter what. There could be a design that keeps a few players interested enough to subscribe for a long time, or one that could be one that creates a higher net rate of subscribers, but only for shorter time.

Now the MA gameplay has been a very successful formula for many years. A big sandbox allowing players to do as they like, choosing their own play modes, goals and challenges. And I do accept the fact that  it's not the game's fault that I do burn out more and more often, because that's just natural. Being here for 5+ years is pretty rare anyway. I seriously doubt any other "game" could have held my interest for so long.

But still I do sometimes wonder if the current MA gameplay is still sufficient these days, not for myself, but to compete with other, even very different games. The player demographics do change, and the number of "new" people coming here because of a inherent & genuine years long interest in WW2 air combat (you know, the kind of guys having read hundreds of books about the subject from childhood on) will probably go down more and more compared to those just looking for another game. Just being able to fly and fight a P-51, Spitfire or even a Ta-152 may not be enough to them ...

[infowars]

Ground combat with real cities would be awesome. 

[Lusche]

Ground combat with real cities would be awesome. 

But how to include that? Reads like a great & simple idea, but the actual implementation could be quite a challenge, not onyl from a technical/resource point of view (I havn't that much knowledge about that), but also from a gameplay / balance one. In RL, there were thousands of ground combatants for each plane / tank. In here, where everyone can fly & drive what and when he likes, what could a foot soldier do? 10 players on foot in a town compared to 20 or more in Lancasters carpet bombing the hell out of 'em?

[BaldEagl]

And here I thought you were going to post great new ideas for the strategic evolution of the game.

[redman555]

Truthfully? I say put the game back to how it was 7 years ago....one arena, fighter town, big missions, and so forth. I will come back in a heartbeat.  I personally started to get bored of the game when they put more then one arena, and then the arena cap...all it did was screw up squad-nights. Also they never play any of the ORIGINAL maps anymore, the FUN ones that us classic players enjoyed more.

-BigBOBCH

[The Fugitive]

I think we need more "goals" The game has been taken over by the "xbox generation", and there play revolves around a goal. For a vast majority it's "win the war". This generates they drive to win the war at all cost type of play that has I think anyway dropped game play. While I have no problem at all with the win the war part of the game I have a HUGE problem with how it's done.

As an attacker my choice is to join the horde, or lead one to smash and grab base after base. As a defender my choice is to jump from base to base putting up as much resistance as possible with how ever many other happen to get there in time. Gets old fast, and makes me avoid the "war" at all.

If you make the bases harder to take, you make bigger hordes which defeat the purpose of making the game any more fun. Leave the base capture as it is, but add a variable that monitors the numbers inside the dar circle. If 15 attackers are inside the circle its a normal take, if the number is 20 either make it take more troops to take, or add time to the timer that the attackers MUST defend and hold the base. If that base is captured and HELD for 30 minutes that team gets 25 perks. Add 10 minutes longer for every 5 extra guys they use to capture the base.

This cuts down the number AT the base and would make defending a bit easier. It wouldn't stop the horde, with the extra numbers being used as intercepts OUTSIDE the dar rings bringing more strategy to an attack. It would also bring more strategy in to play on what was damaged during the attack because the attacker MUST hold the field to "win" the perk award.

The same could be used for the strats. Keep a strat below a certain percentage for a certain amount of time and the team gets perks.

Most gamers look for a reward. Scoring in Aces High isn't the easiest thing to do. Most players these days don't have that kind of attention span   Give them quick rewards to guide gameplay. Creating better game earns rewards, taking short cuts doesn't. Generating MORE combat can't be a bad thing and I think that is what ALL changes should be geared toward. The changes in GVs I think does that. I have spent more time in GVs since the changes and have added to a number of peoples K/S and K/D  

I don't know if it's perks the players are after, or their name in lights, or seeing changes on the scoreboard. But I think those are good "carrots" to damgle in front of peoples noses to work toward making a better gaming experience.

[The Fugitive]

Truthfully? I say put the game back to how it was 7 years ago....one arena, fighter town, big missions, and so forth. I will come back in a heartbeat.  I personally started to get bored of the game when they put more then one arena, and then the arena cap...all it did was screw up squad-nights. Also they never play any of the ORIGINAL maps anymore, the FUN ones that us classic players enjoyed more.

-BigBOBCH

Thats ok, we didn't want you back anyway 

They do play the old maps, Mindinao was up in one of the arenas Saturday. With the numbers as low as the "seem" maybe it is time to go back to a single arena. Altho, maybe HTC is hoping that the summer influx might bring them back up again.

[grizz441]

And here I thought you were going to post great new ideas for the strategic evolution of the game.

Marketing 101.

[Lusche]

Altho, maybe HTC is hoping that the summer influx might bring them back up again.

Summer is traditionally the time with lesser player activity (played hours, players logged on). And the numbers are slowly declining for about 2.5 years now anyway. I don't see that trend broken in the near future, but I hope I will be proven wrong big time

[dirtdart]

Air spawns at TT.  Would redefine spawn camp for sure. 

[Slade]

Now the MA gameplay has been a very successful formula for many years. A big sandbox allowing players to do as they like...

Diversity is good.     

We all fly for different reasons.  Many like to change it up in just an evenings time too: to fly alone, in missions and with squad etc. etc.

[redman555]

Thats ok, we didn't want you back anyway  

They do play the old maps, Mindinao was up in one of the arenas Saturday. With the numbers as low as the "seem" maybe it is time to go back to a single arena. Altho, maybe HTC is hoping that the summer influx might bring them back up again.

Idk man, its just that back when AH had single arena, huge missions, and more cooperation it was funner. Once it split it got so boring.  The fact that the arena cap screws squadnight up, that made me really mad.  And with the huge missions, I remember a mission with 30 people in lancasters, I mean 30! Not including like 20 escorts! You never see that anymore, atleast when I went back for a month and got bored again. I mean I just wish HTC went back to how it used to be.  I thought it was way better, more fun. I mean damn, I would be on there flying for 5-6 hours and it was soooooo fun.  Really the only fun thing I enjoyed when I went back that I used to enjoy was FSO.  Seems like there's more hoers, cherry pickers, and spitdweebs then there used to be.  By far the funnest thing EVER put in AH was fighter Town back in the day.  Dropping in on that giant bowl, having hundreds of people there, enormous dogfights. That was sooo fun!  I mean a huge thing that makes me want to go back is the "brothers" that I made after over 7 years of playing. Its just that it doesnt have the pull anymore. I mean Floatsup and his amazing mission skillz,0000009(or however many zeros lol) bomber skillz, all my CH brothers, Bruv and his ninja skillz, and everyone else. I had played this game since I was a squeaker lol.  IDK if im the only one that feels this way, but AH had so much more potential back in the day.

-BigBOBCH

[The Fugitive]

Idk man, its just that back when AH had single arena, huge missions, and more cooperation it was funner. Once it split it got so boring.  The fact that the arena cap screws squadnight up, that made me really mad.  And with the huge missions, I remember a mission with 30 people in lancasters, I mean 30! Not including like 20 escorts! You never see that anymore, atleast when I went back for a month and got bored again. I mean I just wish HTC went back to how it used to be.  I thought it was way better, more fun. I mean damn, I would be on there flying for 5-6 hours and it was soooooo fun.  Really the only fun thing I enjoyed when I went back that I used to enjoy was FSO.  Seems like there's more hoers, cherry pickers, and spitdweebs then there used to be.  By far the funnest thing EVER put in AH was fighter Town back in the day.  Dropping in on that giant bowl, having hundreds of people there, enormous dogfights. That was sooo fun!  I mean a huge thing that makes me want to go back is the "brothers" that I made after over 7 years of playing. Its just that it doesnt have the pull anymore. I mean Floatsup and his amazing mission skillz,0000009(or however many zeros lol) bomber skillz, all my CH brothers, Bruv and his ninja skillz, and everyone else. I had played this game since I was a squeaker lol.  IDK if im the only one that feels this way, but AH had so much more potential back in the day.

-BigBOBCH

Thats the point tho, THAT game is still here, unfortunately todays players don't play it that way. It was fun getting a bunch of people together and climbing to alt, 14k for buffs, 16k for fighters for cover, turn in towards the target sending a few fighter off in front to drag the cap down. Bomb the snot out of the town and deack to hold the field until the goon came in and did that screaming nose dive to pull up at the last second to drop the troops right over town in a nice big loop.

Ya I remember those days too, but todays players don't have the time for "chit-chat" they are getting to the next field as fast as they can to drop EVERYTHING and make the field totally useless to everyone because once they grab it they have no intention of defending it, because they will be on the other side of the map stealing a base there.

The only goal they can see... and reach, is to win the war and they do that the quickest easiest way they can.