I'm kind of glad this was brought up.
It was a weird vibe in the AvA. There were a few folks who went out of their way to be friendly and welcoming, which was pleasant. Then there was also, from others, an underlying "we're better then you mere MA people, we're the real elite of Aces High" vibe that was somewhat offputting. It's difficult to describe, and possibly somewhat colored by my past experiences in the AvA, but that was the vibe that I felt. If it was my imagination, colored by my past experiences, then I don't know how you guys are going to overcome it in the future. One suggestion might be to make an effort not to convey that same vibe here in the AvA forum, which if you read some of the threads you will see that it is pretty common.
I’m glad I didn’t feel this or see it or experience it I would have comented in the arena.... I did hear some squawking about the spits and ganging but heck the spit nine was a big player in husky, with out it the 109 would have dominated. and at 3k icons that close its to be expected.. The comments I did see were not from the current AVA regulars... for the record ...
I also think that the AvA staff needs to be very careful with their map set ups in relation to the population that you are drawing. While last nights set up worked fairly well with 30ish pilots, I think that with 60 or 90 pilots you would find a condition as bad or worse then the MA. Overcrowding such a compact front will get ugly quickly. There were glimpses of the back and forth gang banging last night.
I agree. Its a balancing act.. in spite of the design and objective the players chose to keep the fight at the front.. all we can do is set the table.. that said the entire island of Sicily and Malta was enabled.
My hope was that some of the organized squads would have made a run on Sicily and taken bases... The set up more than compensated for 60 players with all those baes enabled.. I was going to move the allied southern base to spread out the fight but I wanted to experiment and let nature have is way and give guys a chance to gain territory.. never happened.. was a good test...
I did shorten Icons from 3k to 2k as folks were staying at the close bases.. that compensated and that calmed down allot of the ganging and picking almost immediately as it was easer to evade.. ...Had i taken that southern allied base out of action it would have spread the fight out a bit,I wanted to nuke it.. I almost did....But I was hands off most of the night as I tested .. Dont worry I was taking notes..
I also think that your gameplay will grow stale quickly if nobody seems interested in actually trying to complete the objectives called for by the set up. I was flying Axis for the 2.5 hours I was in the AvA last evening. While I was there, there really were no credible attempts by the Allied side to capture fields that I saw. I'm not sure what the answer to this problem is, but not solving it risks making the AvA the WW2 equivelent of the WW1 Arena. Furball until bored, log off. We can all see how that has turned out so far.
You can lead a horse to water but... like we said all we can do is set the table... I think once folks get a handle on some of the set up concepts that we are doing like rolling plane sets ect objective play will catch on more and more over time.. As the population grows it has always been the plan to scale things to fit the player base...
I hope that you guys will take all of my comments in stride. I think you have the potential for a good thing in the AvA. We were asked to give input. I'm trying to be as open and honest about my perceptions as possible. Not to attack, but only to help.
Thank you very much Sir.. Your coments are valued and apresiated thanks for the input and your partisipation...
~S~RaVe
