My "Great Compromise" idea to fix the strat game. Opinions wanted.

[Slash27]

Well excuuuuuuuuse me!!!  It was just an idea for discussion.

Please tell you aren't bothering to read that bloviating nonsense?

And I really dig your idea.

[WWhiskey]

I never understood What the problem with the old strat system was?  A combination of old and new have been discussed more than a few times tho,,,   IMHO it does seem to be a waste of darn fine eye candy to have the factory setup we have now in such a distant and hard to use place, big nice cities with nothing going on in them,
what was their purpose if no one gets to enjoy them from anything less than 30,000 feet with bombers?

[USRanger]

In 10 years of this ongong almost verbatum group attempt to change the game only the upsides are ever rigorusly discussed. Everyone loves the chance to add some finger paint of their own to this mural. No one actualy wants to deconstruct this sacred cow and see why and where it will fail in the face of how collectivly we know we will beat it to death learning how to game it to everyone elses disadvantage.

No one attempts to define the rational upon which the game is being presented and why it is presented in that manner. Then using that as the operational boundaries perform the postmortum you are dumping on Hitech's shoulders after you have all the fun at the white board showing your variation of AH the Avatar MovieII. Very few of these grand constructions will survive contact with the average player's desire to seek any advantage however miniscule to game the game. They are always intoxicating and intelectualy complex with more holes than fresh baked bread dough.

If you want to change this monstrocity, first honestly define why Hitech limits it to how it currently operates. Then for every idea you come up with to change the game, figure out how to game it in the worst ways possible.

Someone needs a hug.

[FiLtH]

    Anything is better than what we have atm.

     Id agree most players dont even think of them. Why should they?

     Lots of what Bustr said also make sense.

     Do we want a system where a side can cripple the abilities of another side?

     If so, for how long? 

     Remember we have a few squads in here that mass together.


     Imagine this.

One of those sides organize a massive bomber raid at 8pm et.

Some people try to defend, but the strats are hit hard, and ord,fuel are unavailable at certain bases for a long time.

The side doesnt bother rtb, it bails in mass.

Now it ups at a frontline base and porks all the ord of the enemy bases.

Once done, everyone does a mass tank attack across the maps hitting multiple fields.

Base after base is captured with no way to stop them until the strats regen.


   As it is now to stop stuff like this, the strats are huge, ME163s are there to defend, the recovery time of the strats is pretty fast, and they realy dont seem to do anything anyways.

   Rangers idea makes more sense, because it really doesnt seem so much about crippling the enemy, as it is providing targets to bomb. One great addition would be to eliminate the 163 from the game. Save it for events.
Nobody likes to take the time to organize, and fly along ways, only to meet 20+ 163s at the target.

   Ive always wanted a separate arena that would allow strats to cripple the enemy and force people to protect them, but Ranger's idea is a good compromise.

[Letalis]

With respect to the original premise:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6ALySsPXt0

[thndregg]

    Nobody likes to take the time to organize, and fly along ways, only to meet 20+ 163s at the target.

   

I don't say every bomb group does like we do- complete and attempt to survive a mission as entact as we possibly can, but even the 91st has taken several B29's to extreme altitudes into strat/HQ territory and tried to have fun despite the ease of the opposition's Me163 crutch to take us down. It does get old very quickly, and we're probably one of the most patient squads in the game.

[rvflyer]

At least a few manned acks. I have always believed there should be
A couple manned guns in the towns to help defend against the low level
bombers hitting the center of towns.

[Frod]

Well excuuuuuuuuse me!!!  It was just an idea for discussion.

A really good idea for discussion.   

[Hap]

What Lusche said about System Messages.  Yes.

[Hap]

That isn't going to happen. People are paying money to play a game and will not be too happy if they log in to play and see that their ability to play has been crippled by other players.

Yeah . . . I guess you're right.  Even after the war is won, Joe Player can fly about and squeeze the trigger for 5 mins.  My point was, strats while on paper are a great idea, unless the in-game results are real in terms of disadvantaging the other side, then, sadly, things will remain as they are.  Beaucoup points might help.  Would be more fun that milking towns.  And points could be traded for B29's.

Fugi, still something about what you typed doesn't sit well with me.  I do think your assessment of players' reactions is right though.  

Well, how about this.  ENY deprives hot rods from players.  We could open the old Air Warrior "Spit Factory" discussion or something akin to that.  And to hear the howls from Bishlandia when ENY hits, you would think those complaining had been crippled.  When in fact, we know that is not the case.  Again, something possibly similar occurs when a Vbase is taken that was part of a "favorite" spawn battle.  The cry is basically, "you ruined our fun."  

But, even in air combat or ground combat, once you get killed, for that sortie someone "crippled" my play, my fun, what I was gonna do.  Nonetheless your point is valid.  I'm trying to come up with something would allow players to "play" in a way that would satisfy many while at the same take jacking up the other side that is somehow tied to strats.  Maybe Dale and the guys can create something that will accomplish that end.

Still gnawing on this . . . from my view in the cheap seats many players get a bang out of rushing headlong into each other from a close by base as well as a crazy spawn battle on gv's.  Both are similar to each other: a fury of activity.  Honestly, all I can think of is something tied to "availability" of either fuel, ammo, ack, dar, or troops.  Fuel is a no go.  Loved it when it wasn't.  So, really, I see no way to make strat bombing an effective choice in the game.  What's the point of bombing when after all is said and done no harm has been inflicted on the other side.  Yes, there is the "fun" of being intercepted and shooting one's way out of a mess the way large buff formations can . . . but still . . . as I sit right now and think about it, I don't guess any changes to our current strat system are possible.  Rats.

[Hap]

Let's say the Bishops blast the strats of the Knights on the Bish/Nit front.  The Knights would suffer the downtime effects on Bishop front, but the half of the country facing the Rooks would not be effected, since that front has its own strat factories.  The Bishops would be rewarded for their efforts without giving the Rooks a freebie advantage against the Knights.  Each side would have to earn its reward.

Ranger, thanks so much for the thought you put into this and the computer art work also.  Really stunning visuals.

I guess all turns on "would suffer the downtime effects" and how those results would affect Joe Player logging in after a hard day at work.  Or, given Summer is upon us, how strat damage would affect Joey Player logging in after a hard day of lazing about the house.

If crimping anyone's in game playing choices, when it comes to planes, gv's, boats, bullets, gas, bombs, dar, troops, & ack are off limits, then the only roles that I see bombers playing are hangar/town busters and targets for fighters.  I mean, I know we're "pretending" in this game.  It would be just so very nice to make damage damaging to the other side.

[Tilt]

I am not sure that big joint squad ops or even hordes attacking start then rolling ord and bases is "a problem" re any start design. It's really a "horde" related gameplay result. So I would not overly concern any design of strat to focus upon it.

Whilst saying this strat should not be so easy to rollover that it massively changes the game dynamic.

I quite like the big cities, I think there should be more of them and hitting them should bring rewards ( to bombers) beyond those enjoyed when hitting towns.

The nice thing about them being big is that it would take a lot of bombs to kill them off and so multiple big cities would mean that the city/strat object could repair comparatively slowly to what we experience now.

I would like to see a link between strat and bases that was proportional. I.e lots of healthy strat in ratio to a few bases means faster base rebuild and inversely lots of bases in need of rebuild in ratio to fewer healthy strats means longer base rebuild times.

Splitting the strat almost back to the old model is not so attractive to me. Actually looking at FiLth's analysis the ord strat would/ may be easier to attrit alone if it uniquely became close to enemy bases.

Zoning the strat as ranger suggests does balance game play across fronts. I missed what would happen if a front line passed strat zones...... Also on smaller maps we do see occasions where one side invades beyond the mid point of another. In this scenario both sides ae attritting the residual strat. To me this is ok ( the losing side is losing ...... So what?) but in this instance the twin front strat zone is prejudiced.

Actually just making loads of strategic targets such as multiple big cities would probably have the same net effect if set with the appropriate relationship with total strategic health against rebuild times.

In summary I would very much support any change that brought strat back into game play, both with respect to effect and reward. I think now it has to be made simpler. I would get rid of specific factories and their links back to hangers, base ammo, radar, supplies etc and just make them cities (vis the bomber Harris approach) or just "factories"( within cities? ) that have a general health condition that effects rebuild times generically.

[Fox]

What if damaging the strategic targets, in addition to the current results to fields and bases, contributed toward the win the war campaign.  For example, each of the strats might be work x fields.  Each strat might have a different value.  Destroying a % of the strat would earn a portion of the target value towards winning the war.

Perhaps this concept might allow the strats to play a larger role without impacting those who don't care about the win the war aspect of the game.

[Tilt]

Several posts above refer to and debate crippling. I would agree that any thing that denies players access to game play is not an objective. However something that radically alters the ability of a countries ability to "win" ( due to a strategic mis balance) whilst still permitting all players access to the fight is IMO very desirable.

This then should target capture as the variable mechanism. We can see several variables that do not effect ride access. Looking at the town we see that capture can be made easier or harder as town objects rebuild slower or faster or indeed if the % destroyed ( prior white flag) becomes greater or lesser. Strat could link to these variables without prejudicing game access.


I am sure that there are more........

[Lusche]

What if damaging the strategic targets, in addition to the current results to fields and bases, contributed toward the win the war campaign.  For example, each of the strats might be work x fields.  Each strat might have a different value.  Destroying a % of the strat would earn a portion of the target value towards winning the war.

Perhaps this concept might allow the strats to play a larger role without impacting those who don't care about the win the war aspect of the game.

This goes somewhat into the direction of one proposal I made almost 2 years ago. Instead of a simple base count (which leads to a wha-a-mole gameplay) I suggested to assign a point value to the different kind of bases, for example:

VBase, Port: 1
Small Airfield: 2
Medium Airfield: 4
Large Airfield: 6
City: up to 16 if fully down.

So instead of 20% of all bases a country would need 20% of all points from each enemy.

The advantage I see is that not only the main strategic target becomes suddenly very valuable without "crippling" anything, but also the now differeing importance of different bases for reset counds may reduce the whack-a-mole" effect somewhat and makes holding certain key bases much more attractive.
Right now, when one base is under attack, the "friendly" mob will just try to capture the enemie's bases faster instead of defending (=hordes avoiding each other). Now if that base would be a 6pt large airfield... or a field which opens the way to the city...