Zoney, "we" are the people who use to play. Unlike many of my contemporaries I'm still here, they have moved on.
Grizz, LOL!!! talk about grumpy old men, you don't even play the game any more...could it be because it sucks or has become boring?
Lusche, players change, and some drastically. I know I change 3 or 4 times a day when I get a chance to play, because it is what the game allows. Stats are stats, not FACTS.
It doesn't matter what "I remember" about the game, we can all agree that the game needs changes. This game MUST cater to many styles/types of players if it is to flourish. We have
- Fighters- love to do nothing but fight don't even know you can win the war
- Tankers- only know planes are around when their spawn camp gets hit by A20's
- Mission/group players- will do what ever it takes to see that system message pop up
In side these groups are sub groups.
- Fighters- made up of lone wolves, winged teams/historians, full squads both as fighter sweeps types as well as mission orintated/history type flying cover missions and such.
- Tankers- spawn campers, attack battle groups, defender groups the use wirbles and Osties as there main rides
- Mission/group players-Hordes protecting the new/weak, missions/historians team up to "play war", land grabbers do what ever is needed to grab the next base, vulchers will join a mission in the hopes that ack gets cleared so they can grab some easy kills and have no interest in grabbing the base
I'm sure there are more, and ...let me put this in big letters so everyone understand...
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ANY OF THESE STYLES OF PLAY! These are are all, and some of the players that HTC has to accommodate for this game to continue and grow. The problem is how to make it so that all of these groups can play they way they want with out crushing someone else playing style.
Suggestions
- Bring the old strat back- The separate zone base created major battle for a zone base. Depots spread about the map created a wonder land of "porking " opportunities both for helping in the war effort as well as easy points/perks for both buffs and GVs. With the old depot setup GV hunting was a fun pass time for many as well as clearing a depot with a GV. The same can be said about buff hunting as well as buffs making the shorter quicker run to the depots instead of the long flight to ones that may not be there when you arrive because they have retreated.
- Towns- remove the ack, make the GV spawn points be opposite side of the town than the field but the same distance as the field is to the town. HTC made these beautiful towns with streets and sign posts and bridges and building all over the place. What a wonderful place for a GV battle! It doesn't happen because the spawn points are on the other side of the fields. Campers kill them before they can get to the town and battle it out. Ack only hurts GVs. Planes can bomb the towns with out ack bothering them. Put a coupe around the map room to cover it, but make sure they don't fire through buildings and trees. An equal footing should give the GV places to battle it out in the towns by making the ride in equal. More GV battles make more spots for dive bombers.
- Captures- tie the hardness of the buildings to the incoming raid numbers. The larger the number of enemy in the DAR circle the more ordinance needed to take down a building. Hordes will still come in, but now everyone's bombs will be needed. This also goes the other way. A small force won't need as much to take the town down and so can capture WITHOUT the need of a horde. This way small attack groups have the same chance at a capture as the hordes. With no ack at the town the newly captured base will have to be defended for 30 minutes until the building pop back up other wise as it is still "white flagged" it can be recaptured with ease.
- Missions- create a mission ready room like "that other game" use to have. Building a mission and having the meeting room for everyone to meet up before the mission in builds comradiery , and adds immersion for those "history" types. With the wall board with waypoints and wings and such will lead to missions with a purpose instead of the old "everyone grab a 110 heavy". Added immersion would add to the team aspect of the game.
- points/perks- these could be used to promote combat as well. Like ENY is used to reward you for winning a fight with a 109G2 so could they be used to winning a base with smaller numbers, or holding the base after capturing it, or defending it from an attack.
Making changes like these won't stop a horde, or change the win the wars ideas, but it would create more combat to accomplish the same things. You can still run in a horde if that what you need, or you can work a side battle with a few of your squadies. HTC has most of this stuff in the game. By adding more and leading people to using whats there it will make the game have more content. Missions will be something people would look forward to as more interest would be generated by anything other than "here comes the same old same old"