More Finish Lines (or maybe less?...)

[Babalonian]

Was a lot of action last night across the knight front.  At one point, after the enemy captured a nearby field and I was doing my usual Dilbert impressions, I noted to myself "hey, ain't that funny, 80-90% of the attackers are all landing/landed or in the pattern to land without a care that there's still ~6 bad guys in the area and in icon range".  The 10% that cared were doing their best to knock us threats out of the sky before we could mow through to the runway built on a turkey farm.


Shortly afterwards I'm reupped and climbing out and mulling over the recent situation from an "outside the box" perspective.  The insides of this specific box I'm familiar with - a turkey shoot presented itself, and I did take advantage out of it for as long as I could.  I conclude there has to be a logical answer to "why would they/you do that, silver platter and all?" since they might as well bail / fly to a neighboring field/delay landing 120 seconds after combating 20-30 minutes there already for the area to be secured / etc.. 

It was like a race to land, but the base capture wasn't the starting line, it was their finish line.  Most people on this forum seem the perpetuate that the race for the finish line is in the scores, stats, winning the war for bases and real estate, or how big the lights are on your sign when landing (myself just trying to do one thing better this sortie than the last sortie) - yet I just witnessed at the least a couple-dozen to a ratio of a half-dozen redefine whatever prize it is we think they desire as the vast majority ignored their score, stats, name in lights or whatever other gain... to feed me and my vulch-savy countrymen?...  no, but I could be wrong. 

I think it's because it didn't matter to them, they had acheived their "finish line" together and being able to succesfuly land or not within the next 2-minutes didn't matter, but what did was that they were off to their next race and the next finish line together already. 


TLDR:  I found myself admiring the true power/impact of a tangable "finishing line"/achievement/victory within an multiplayer game like AH.  The persuation it has with players over (aparently) secondary priorities/objectives to them (amongst these being score, name in lights, or landing the aircraft as safely and whole as possible - which if you follow the forums often =    ).

So... if this was a true moment of absolute victory and achievement for these players, and nothing else after that point mattered the slightest in the AH MAs... are most players even aware of it, of this "finish line" they crossed most the time?  Would it be of a benefit to AH to add more, similar or different moments of absolute victory/achievement?  Or, what if this victorious moment for these players is wrong, something not intended or desired within AH, but being carried out and achieved regularly if not often?

If to these players last night capturing a base was their achieving moment ("nothing else matters from here on this sortie, I won, all downhill, don't care") but you strongly disagree with its merits, then what's your acheiving moment?

[Wiley]

I would expect their mindset would be more along the lines of 'It doesn't matter MUCH if I die now.' rather than 'It doesn't matter.'  If it really didn't matter, they'd auger.

I know the times I've smashed to earth with enemy in sight it was because I wanted to get up with a fresh plane asap.  I generally have a half-decent feel for how long it takes me to get down and get stopped, though sometimes if they have smash they get me before I'm able to .ef.  I also admit to a certain feeling of 'Nyah nyah!' if I narrowly avoid a vulch.  Vulching isn't my favorite thing in the game, and I like to suck them in to get killed by ack if landing at that moment serves my purposes.

As to my personal 'finish lines', I'd say there are three that are most common for me.  Most of the time my overall goal in the game is to help my side control airspace and keep the enemy from doing what it wants where I'm able.  I figure enough people go on the attack against rare opposition, I can get my fun defending.  I consider it a victory when they give up their attack at a field I'm defending, or if they switch to GVs.

The other 'finish line' I have comes in attempting to accomplish that goal.  I get my jollies shooting down enemy aircraft and helping my countrymen do likewise, whatever form that takes. If I've had time to come in at alt, I generally prioritize my targets as escort fighters->bombers->high fighters->low fighters.  Sometimes if I feel it's worthwhile, I'll try to take the bombers out from under the escorts but that rarely ends in success.  Taking a goon out under a large enemy cap gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, doubly so if I survive the sortie.

The third finish line I have is landing after doing the above.  I don't generally consider a sortie a total success unless it ends with me landing on the runway.  Missing parts just makes it sweeter most times.

Wiley.

[Babalonian]

I agree it's a great accomplishment to successfuly defend somewhere until the threat has stopped, but with defence flights I very rarely hit a point (short of critical damage or fuel/ammo) where "it doesn't much matter if I die now, we did it".  But I'm also of your mindframe where a part of the challenge with each sortie is to (hopefuly) try to land as much as possible.  Ontop of that, you rarely (short of it being after midnight PST) know with certainy wether the enemy has retreated, he is regrouping and hasn't begun to fight, or is actually already half-way back with an NOE raid.  Might just be me, but the only problem I have with defencive operations is you don't know when you're done with them (most nights it honestly never ends), although you certainly know when they should begin (IE: two-sectors worth of full enemy darbars heading straight for a flanking base OR a base with radar still up and a bad case of the pox).

Helping my team shoot down the enemy and stay alive is also another single achievement at a time, but as a whole I consider each one we shoot down just a competitor we've overtaken as he will likely be back shortly as a threat/competition in that same race for the finish line.  I also feel if there's one thing AH does well in the arenas is adequatley compensate and reward a player for their victory in their plane against another player and agaisnt their plane choice.

[The Fugitive]

Was a lot of action last night across the knight front.  At one point, after the enemy captured a nearby field and I was doing my usual Dilbert impressions, I noted to myself "hey, ain't that funny, 80-90% of the attackers are all landing/landed or in the pattern to land without a care that there's still ~6 bad guys in the area and in icon range".  The 10% that cared were doing their best to knock us threats out of the sky before we could mow through to the runway built on a turkey farm.


Shortly afterwards I'm reupped and climbing out and mulling over the recent situation from an "outside the box" perspective.  The insides of this specific box I'm familiar with - a turkey shoot presented itself, and I did take advantage out of it for as long as I could.  I conclude there has to be a logical answer to "why would they/you do that, silver platter and all?" since they might as well bail / fly to a neighboring field/delay landing 120 seconds after combating 20-30 minutes there already for the area to be secured / etc.. 

It was like a race to land, but the base capture wasn't the starting line, it was their finish line.  Most people on this forum seem the perpetuate that the race for the finish line is in the scores, stats, winning the war for bases and real estate, or how big the lights are on your sign when landing (myself just trying to do one thing better this sortie than the last sortie) - yet I just witnessed at the least a couple-dozen to a ratio of a half-dozen redefine whatever prize it is we think they desire as the vast majority ignored their score, stats, name in lights or whatever other gain... to feed me and my vulch-savy countrymen?...  no, but I could be wrong. 

I think it's because it didn't matter to them, they had acheived their "finish line" together and being able to succesfuly land or not within the next 2-minutes didn't matter, but what did was that they were off to their next race and the next finish line together already. 


TLDR:  I found myself admiring the true power/impact of a tangable "finishing line"/achievement/victory within an multiplayer game like AH.  The persuation it has with players over (aparently) secondary priorities/objectives to them (amongst these being score, name in lights, or landing the aircraft as safely and whole as possible - which if you follow the forums often =    ).

So... if this was a true moment of absolute victory and achievement for these players, and nothing else after that point mattered the slightest in the AH MAs... are most players even aware of it, of this "finish line" they crossed most the time?  Would it be of a benefit to AH to add more, similar or different moments of absolute victory/achievement?  Or, what if this victorious moment for these players is wrong, something not intended or desired within AH, but being carried out and achieved regularly if not often?

If to these players last night capturing a base was their achieving moment ("nothing else matters from here on this sortie, I won, all downhill, don't care") but you strongly disagree with its merits, then what's your acheiving moment?

ummmmm did you eat supper with Bustr tonight?   

[nrshida]

ummmmm did you eat supper with Bustr tonight?   

Lolz. What's he asking? 

[coombz]

lol i had a similar thought earlier when I read that Fugi :]

[Stellaris]

My only finish lines is - did I do that better, or did I mess that up?  What have I learned?

The only real measure of this is internal.  I could have a better K/D ratio if I only engaged from a position of advantage.  I could have a better hit percentage if I only took high percentage shots.  I record every sortie, and when there's good flying involved (by me or by the other guy) I review the tape and see what I can learn.  If I give you a salute, whether you went down or I did, you can be sure I'll be watching the engagement in slow motion to see how I can get better.

[bustr]

ummmmm did you eat supper with Bustr tonight?   

Sorry this one is all him. I don't let anyone near my magic bottle of hooch. I think he's going through that late 20's, 30ish meaning of life thingy. My latest batch of Kimchi would have removed his brain stem and left him mute. I put in 1 cup of chilli flakes. Though it could be the fumes from the spit14 engine startup at the Air Museum he volinteers at. He likes to lay on the wing when it starts up.