"look at me I am making a derogatory remark to the OP"
I KNOW its the players that have brought the game play down. I also know that if HTC coaded in the right carrots you could get these same players to change how they play. They shouldn't have to. If a few squads got it into there heads that they were going to bring strategy back into this game it would turn around eventually. But it's a lot of work, and everyone is really here just to have fun.
I feel like you agreed with me that it is on HTC and disagreed with me that it is on HTC all in the same paragraph. I could go on and on about things, post another five good ideas to improve strategy in this game to be ignored, and post till my fingers bleed, but I don't see the point anymore. If it takes HTC a year or longer to get the strats to actually have strategic value, then I have little faith in this game's ability to evolve. The game's weak link is certainly the strategy aspect of things, yet I don't see any effort being invested towards it.
From a myopic point of view... if you want Strategy, fly FSO. It seems the MA is just a DA with rotating maps.
I thought this is how the old zone bases used to work with zone strats. If you took down Ammo to 0% at a strat, it took 3 hours for ord to repop instead of 45 minutes... I may be incorrect on this.
The same drivel, the same bullspit personal attacks, and yet, somehow, miraculously, we seem to rack up thousands of air-to-air kills every month without fighting or coming anywhere near the enemy. The last night I was on before tonight (Tuesday or Wednesday) we managed to rack up a good 20 or 30 kills between about ten of us defending against one NOE attack alone - a pretty impressive feat given that, as I read here, none of us ever get within 30 miles of the enemy by choice. I guess it's a good thing we have that standoff missile haxx!All these rants, whines, and blubbering hissy fits, and it all leaves me with the same amusing image: a spoiled little sissy defensive captain throwing his helmet on the ground and jumping up and down and bawling, "Reffff! Coooooach! It's not fair! They keep throwing the ball to open receivers instead of throwing it where our guys are standing! Then they keep running faster than us and never giving us a chance to tackle them! Make them stop! It isn't faaaaaaairrr!!!!!" Didn't any of you spoiled little brats have daddies to tell you when you were eight years old to quit crying and act like a man when you got whupped by an opponent's smarter game play? I guess not.It's no BS, it's simple fact. The rules and setup of the game determine what tactics are effective. The rules of football favor the forward pass, if dropped passes were treated as fumbles, or if defenders were allowed to tackle receivers before the catch, teams would stop passing. They aren't, so teams go on passing. It's no use whining that good sports would just run straight up the middle and straight into the maximum number of defenders every time; that's plainly not the way the game was meant to be played.Likewise, in AH, the game setup has you attacking objectives right next to enemy airfields at which the defenders can instantly and endlessly reup no matter how many times they get killed (which is, of course, stupendously unrealistic in tactical/simulation terms even if you completely ignore the personal desire of RL pilots to live), so effective tactics are those that prevent the defenders from doing so. Fighting or not has nothing to do with it - if the defenders want to fight, there'll be one, if they don't, there won't. It's about changing the parameters of the fight so the defenders no longer have that "gamey" advantage. That will never change until that aspect of the game setup changes.And as for the numbers whines, I thought we wanted a less gamey simulation? There was no "side balancing" in the war. Missions and fights where attackers and defenders were evenly matched in numbers, quality of planes, and situation were the exception. Missions where they even knew what odds to expect were the exception. If you want to fly like a real WW2 pilot did, if you want your experience to be more like the real thing (minus the part about people actually dying, of course) and less artificially gamey, learn to quit whining on the BBS and 200 and play the hand you're dealt like they had to do. At least in AH the numbers imbalance shifts all the time and almost never favors any one side for more than an evening. (For myself, I'd be happy with more effective side balancing, but I don't claim I want anything but a good, engaging game based on a flight sim.)
I feel like you agreed with me that it is on HTC and disagreed with me that it is on HTC all in the same paragraph.
And who creates the strategies? If we go by Webster's...Strat´e`gyn. 1. The science of military command, or the science of projecting campaigns and directing great military movements; generalship. 2. The use of stratagem or artifice.So its up to the players to create the strategy. The problem with the players today is that a vast majority don't want to "play" the game they only want to win it as quickly as they can. Even if a player spent the time to organize a strategy, made plans using vehicles and planes, over laying missions and forcing battles along a wide front that would run for 4 hours it wouldn't be nearly as must fun or immersive as you would think because of how the "defending" players would react.Most likely once they saw that a flight was over flying a base they would land/bail and look for another fight, or ignore the flights all together to launch their next NOE/horde mission. How much fun would a big battle plan be if no one showed up to defend against it? Forward running fighter sweepers would bail and go look for something more fun, The attacks would roll over base after base with minimum defense. and so on like we have now.Until the players want to "play" the game all your going to get is the hordes we have and the unskilled/skilled runners protecting their scores.
I must admit, I think Grizz is right about this. There doesn't seem to be much effort being put into improving the strategic gameplay. Heck, HTC won't even make maps for the game. For whatever reason, it is expected that the community do that work. Even more baffling is that the community doesn't seem to see that as a problem.
Falconwing, AH is a different type of game completely from an MMORPG. It is one of the few bastions of gaming left in the world where your success in game is mostly determined by skill as opposed to the amount of time and patience you have to keep doing a repetitive task in order to grow your character.Reread the quoted paragraph. I see intercept missions and strategic missions (such as they are) every night in the MA. You didn't suggest any different gameplay from what's available, all you suggested was a "reward" that gives you something to pose with, or show off to other players.If the gameplay in and of itself is not compelling, why will it suddenly become fun if you get a different skin if you shoot down 50 planes?I don't mean this as a personal slam against you, Falconwing but IMO the fact that 'do repetitive task to get gear/levels/a different look for your character' has somehow been conditioned into people to be considered 'gameplay' saddens me horribly. If you don't know what a Skinner Box is, google it, and then take a look at Aion. It is 'hit the button, get a cookie' with pretty graphics, that is all.MMORPGs make money. It's what they're designed to do, and they do it by addicting people.IMO a game like AH unfortunately has a shelf life with every single person who plays it. Getting bored with it is inevitable because eventually your capabilities will plateau for long enough that you get bored. For some it's 2 months, others 15 years. Instanced grinding will do nothing to alleviate that.Wiley.
