a BETTER strat system for all.

[Wiley]

Depends on the level of "debilitation". It almost seems a bit to me as if you are trying to read something into my postings which isn't there. 

Could you please make clear what your objection is?

Well, you're proposing to make the effects of bombing the strats last some nebulous 'long time'.  This means that people logging into a country, through no fault of their own, have their options limited for that nebulous 'long time'.  As it stands now, the strats are down for a while, but for most, only a sortie or two's worth of time.  Does that make more sense?

Wiley.

[Lusche]

Well, you're proposing to make the effects of bombing the strats last some nebulous 'long time'.  This means that people logging into a country, through no fault of their own, have their options limited for that nebulous 'long time'.  As it stands now, the strats are down for a while, but for most, only a sortie or two's worth of time.  Does that make more sense?

Wiley.

Not much.

First, it's already happening. When I log in I have options taken away by no fault of my own - ENY, captured CVs, porked bases and so on.  It's always a game in progress.
Second, I see no reason why it should NOT have any impact for more than 45 minutes. Especially as I'm wondering what those "limited options" are that you are talking about? It seems you are just assuming things in a way that would be not following with the principles I have very clearly stated in this thread.

[Wiley]

Not much.

First, it's already happening. When I log in I have options taken away by no fault of my own - ENY, captured CVs, porked bases and so on.  It's always a game in progress.
Second, I see no reason why it should NOT have any impact for more than 45 minutes. Especially as I'm wondering what those "limited options" are that you are talking about? It seems you are just assuming things in a way that would be not following with the principles I have very clearly stated in this thread.

Of the things you listed, how many are country-wide, affecting you no matter where you go, and in the control of other players?  Only ENY, and that's debatable.

Reading back, I just realized I had attributed something Nathan said to you.  My apologies.  I can't argue with anything you've said in this thread.

Wiley.

[Nathan60]

Of the things you listed, how many are country-wide, affecting you no matter where you go, and in the control of other players?  Only ENY, and that's debatable.

Reading back, I just realized I had attributed something Nathan said to you.  My apologies.  I can't argue with anything you've said in this thread.

Wiley.

And what was that? I'm sure Lusche probably already  explained what I was trying to say just much more intelligently.

[Wiley]

The fact that you want your strat runs to have the effects last til after you land.  Country-wide debilitating effects for what, an hour and change?  Not a good thing to put in the hands of players.

Wiley.

[Nathan60]

The fact that you want your strat runs to have the effects last til after you land.  Country-wide debilitating effects for what, an hour and change?  Not a good thing to put in the hands of players.

Wiley.

You are forgetting the fact  that I said  decentralize the strats and  move them in to a zone system so  they are  more spread out and and closer to more bases.  I think this  is  the old  system that was discussed in some  other threads. Yes and  as for an hour  and  change yes, possible or the  strats  can  be  kept down unsupped but then make  the depots stay down a little longer and the bases a little  longer. Convoys and  sups  start at strats  move to  area  depots then to  bases, if thats totally unfeasible so be it, but that's where counterpoints and  further discussion can form the basis  of a possible system that would work for  everyone.. You could increase  the rewards or whatever for resuping the strats, just a  idea maybe a bad one, but  this is  where you come in an tell us why in your opinion its  a bad idea. Yes  having all the strats in one  area  affecting he  entire country is  bad  but  having  strats  spread out in zones that effcet that zone and the country as  a whole in a lesser extent to me isn't that bad of  an idea.

I'm not saying that each little island  gets a complete  strat complex but you can have a ord factory there that effects the local  area. Someone suggested a convoy system that   while  may be  too ambitious looks  fun to me. I'm just saying the current strat system is  lame IMO, and is  discussion worthy. The big strat system Lusche talked about last page  id fine with me  aswell,  but  as it  stands  the strats  really are un attactive as  he pointed out

That's the effect factor. Longer downtime means a bigger effect for the same effort. And if you tweak it so that the status of the main strats will have a noticable impact, they will be a more attractive target. Thus increasing gameplay options and diversity.

If the main strats are damaged they could resup the  zone strats  at a slower pace which in turns  slows down how  quickly ords and other things come back up at bases in that zone. Further damage to the Zone stats  slow process  to resupping the bases. What happends now if someone was to up  take the   ords factories down to 0 how  long does it  take  ord as  a base 10 sectors away  to repop?

[Lusche]

The fact that you want your strat runs to have the effects last til after you land.  Country-wide debilitating effects for what, an hour and change?  Not a good thing to put in the hands of players.

Wiley.

The fact that you want your strat runs to have the effects last til after you land.  Country-wide debilitating effects for what, an hour and change?  Not a good thing to put in the hands of players.

IMHO having a well defended target that takes a 2 hour mission to bomb it but has only a negligible impact isn't a good thing either.  This is exactly the very reason why the balance between tactical and strategic missions is so extremely tilted towards the tactical side. There is little motivation for a bomber pilot to do a sortie which's results are already gone before you even landed. Without a logner lasting effect, start runs do not make sens, because that is what strategic attacks are all about.

And things don't have to be black or white either. Increasing the significance of strategic targets doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's not that it absolute has to have a nuke-like effect on a country, this would indeed create another imbalance. It's just a matter of being reasonable in the amount of tweak involved.

[Wiley]

IMHO having a well defended target that takes a 2 hour mission to bomb it but has only a negligible impact isn't a good thing either.  This is exactly the very reason why the balance between tactical and strategic missions is so extremely tilted towards the tactical side. There is little motivation for a bomber pilot to do a sortie which's results are already gone before you even landed. Without a logner lasting effect, start runs do not make sens, because that is what strategic attacks are all about.

And things don't have to be black or white either. Increasing the significance of strategic targets doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's not that it absolute has to have a nuke-like effect on a country, this would indeed create another imbalance. It's just a matter of being reasonable in the amount of tweak involved.

If you put in a mechanism where a relatively few players can affect the entire other side's gameplay and keep that effect going constantly, there's going to be a few groups of players that do exactly that.  If it's a strong enough effect to make it uncomfortable for the defending side, they're going to get discouraged.  If it's not a strong enough effect to make it uncomfortable, we're back to the 'why bother?' situation for the bombers.

I've seen how you fly, Lusche.  It's somewhat similar to how I fly a lot of the time.  How many guys spend their evening doing that?  I bet during primetime we'd be doing good to have 20 or 30 people in the air over the entire game that are flying like that, high in position and ready to intercept bombers, the rest being down in the weeds fighting among themselves.

People who are committed over a relatively long term to bomb something til it's down are unstoppable.  Whatever effect the strats being down will have on the defending country will pretty much become 'normal' for one or two of the countries.

That's my concern.  Too few people would be willing to up to defend repeatedly against something like that.

Wiley.

[Lusche]

If you put in a mechanism where a relatively few players can affect the entire other side's gameplay and keep that effect going constantly, there's going to be a few groups of players that do exactly that.

Now that would be great and exactly what I'm aiming for!  

If it's a strong enough effect to make it uncomfortable for the defending side, they're going to get discouraged.  If it's not a strong enough effect to make it uncomfortable, we're back to the 'why bother?' situation for the bombers.
People who are committed over a relatively long term to bomb something til it's down are unstoppable.

So are field porkers and CV killers.  Yet the game is still going on.

Whatever effect the strats being down will have on the defending country will pretty much become 'normal' for one or two of the countries.

It still reads to me as if you are somewhat stuck with the "all or nothing" effect, of attacked strats will totally cripple a side's operations. And this is exactly the kind unbalance I do not have in mind at all. They should be more significant and atrractive to increase gameplay diversity (and, depending on implementation, maybe even add a true  layer of 'strategy'), but they should be that significant as to create another imbalance.


Think about just extending the downtime of factories and/or the city. The effect on fields would be still rather subtle, but it would last longer. Factories wouldn't get back to 100% when the buff pilot has landed. The strats would be a more attractive target, and probably being attacked more often.
BUT - a steady stream of attackers results in more defenders. And on top of that, it's in most cases still a very long mission, so it's not that suddenly the strats would be 100% down all the time.

That's my concern.  Too few people would be willing to up to defend repeatedly against something like that.

My experience showed otherwise. We had a lot more of regularly strat raids, and they all met resistance.
People do not bother to defend something for various reasons. The biggest one is the same as for attackers: Why do so if it isn't worth the effort?

[Wiley]

So are field porkers and CV killers.  Yet the game is still going on.

Again, those effects still aren't country-wide.

Think about just extending the downtime of factories and/or the city. The effect on fields would be still rather subtle, but it would last longer. Factories wouldn't get back to 100% when the buff pilot has landed. The strats would be a more attractive target, and probably being attacked more often.
BUT - a steady stream of attackers results in more defenders. And on top of that, it's in most cases still a very long mission, so it's not that suddenly the strats would be 100% down all the time.

If it's a worthwhile effect, why wouldn't they just keep coming back to keep it down?  Repetetive actions to accomplish a goal is the standard of play in the MA.  If it's not attractive enough to keep them coming back, aren't we once again back to the 'why bother?' stage?

My experience showed otherwise. We had a lot more of regularly strat raids, and they all met resistance.
People do not bother to defend something for various reasons. The biggest one is the same as for attackers: Why do so if it isn't worth the effort?

I'm guessing the time when the strats had major effects and raids were more common is longer ago than 2 years.  That probably skews my perspective, as the majority of the strat runs I've seen haven't bred a lot of resistance.  Since I've been here, they've been rare and mostly relatively unopposed.  I'll take your word for it that when they are common, more people show up to fight.

Perhaps that's what skews my perception.  From my experience, smallish bomber missions quite often meet enough resistance to make it interesting.  Large ones with escort rarely meet enough opposition to be effective against them from what I've seen, and that's what I fear would become the new norm.

If more people did show up to defend, I agree it would be swell.  I like high-alt fights, I like escorting and intercepting.  It just doesn't seem to me to be a particularly popular playstyle.

Sorry, I just have trouble accepting stuff I haven't seen.  I guess based on that, I'll let it go because at this point it all hinges on whether enough people would show up to make it work.

Wiley.

[Lusche]

Again, those effects still aren't country-wide.

And again: "Country-wide" doesn't have to mean "crippling". I'm not asking for things like "airplane factories" or "killing ammo factory will kill all ords everywhere". I'm asking for "more effect" not "total effect".

If it's a worthwhile effect, why wouldn't they just keep coming back to keep it down?  Repetetive actions to accomplish a goal is the standard of play in the MA.  

Yes! And this is what I strive for- the targets SHOULD attract attackers. That's why they are there in the first place!

If it's not attractive enough to keep them coming back, aren't we once again back to the 'why bother?' stage?

Exactly the problem as it is today.

I'm guessing the time when the strats had major effects and raids were more common is longer ago than 2 years.  That probably skews my perspective, as the majority of the strat runs I've seen haven't bred a lot of resistance.  Since I've been here, they've been rare and mostly relatively unopposed.  I'll take your word for it that when they are common, more people show up to fight.

Some went through almost unmolested, most were attacked being time, some never even reached the target

If more people did show up to defend, I agree it would be swell.  I like high-alt fights, I like escorting and intercepting.  It just doesn't seem to me to be a particularly popular playstyle.

And it will never be, nor do I want to force people into it. Such missions take a lot of time  But there are alot more players that would do this kind of stuff if there was an incentive to it (one may complain about why this is even necessary, but that's how people are).

[Wiley]

And again: "Country-wide" doesn't have to mean "crippling". I'm not asking for things like "airplane factories" or "killing ammo factory will kill all ords everywhere". I'm asking for "more effect" not "total effect".

That is the single most important part about the setup though, what effect can it possibly have that is noticable but not crippling, yet is worthwhile for the attacker?  Other than when my country's radar HQ gets hit, I don't think I've ever noticed a strat hit have an effect on me.  Probably due to playstyle and the way it's set up.  I think we'd both agree the radar strat staying down for an hour and change even with resupply would be a game killer, but what is an effect that people would feel is both worth defending and actually worthwhile attacking?

Yes! And this is what I strive for- the targets SHOULD attract attackers. That's why they are there in the first place!

So when it's a constant series of horde missions at 35k in B24s with massive jug escort, you're expecting there will be enough people willing to climb up there to keep it interesting?  Or is it not far, far more likely that there will be you, me, and maybe a dozen other scattered alt monkeys that get pushed down or killed, and people just eventually don't bother because that kind of radar blob is indefensible in their mind, the same as most horde defense goes now?  Lose fight in arena, start whinefest in forums.

Exactly the problem as it is today.

If it's a change that ultimately winds up back in the 'why bother?' stage, why bother making the change?

And it will never be, nor do I want to force people into it. Such missions take a lot of time  But there are alot more players that would do this kind of stuff if there was an incentive to it (one may complain about why this is even necessary, but that's how people are).

Again, it feels to me a lot of the time like people involved with the ground war feel like they're doing a job and therefore deserve a reward, rather than having fun doing what they're doing.

Wiley.

[Lusche]

So when it's a constant series of horde missions at 35k in B24s with massive jug escort

There will never ever be such a thing.

[Wiley]

There will never ever be such a thing.

If the target is attractive enough, why not?

Wiley.

[Lusche]

If the target is attractive enough, why not?

Wiley.

Math.