I disagree (who woulda guessed haha)
seriously though.....I see what you are saying...but you are forgetting intent......the guy who is roping cons is intent on killing them..... he is engaging them, his nose being pointed up does not mean he disengaged them...when I merge with someone my nose is not pointed right AT them....I am still engaging them.....a BnZ player that hits the deck to get away from a death his "intent" is not to engage but to save his cartoon life.....
The more I fight in the MA, the more I see the futility of trying to define what "running" is. I sat in a PT boat and watched a P-51D attempt to BnZ a Seafire.... over and over this guy came in and couldn't make the shot. He ran out of icon range, and then came back... eventually the Seafire ran out of gas, the P-51 tried to HO and of course lost. The pilot then said "You kept running to your PT boat" (I never hit him once). That was his come back for the "fight".
*I* would consider that lame... in a 1v1... this was a decent pilot in the 51, not a newb just trying to learn the game. Last night I spent 30 minutes trying to engage a P-47N in my Ki-84... he was too scared to actually engage me, and any time I cut the corner when he tried to go in on a lower con, he just extended his dive. The last part of the "fight" was me climbing after him north of 30k... because when I fly the Ki-84 with my Inkskin, well, I don't plan on coming home. After he clearly wasn't interested in fighting even on his home turf (I even feinted turns a few times to see if he'd turn and dive) I finally said screw it and just slow dived knowing he'd invariably overshoot. He did, but in flying BACK I ran into his buddies... there were 4 of them total now, at least that I could see... a Yak, a Corsair, A 205, and the orbital 47. I went in on the 205, they checked him, he broke, and I was too fast (trying to stay ahead of the 47 now turning back) to catch him. The corsair overshot and I fired but he was under the nose and the Yak ended me.
I said "awesome job, guys" on 200. The IMMEDIATE response was the Yak (who'd killed me... thankfully not the 47) saying "So what it was 3 v 1 (it was actually 4) I've been dealing with that all night". I was genuinely congratulating them, mainly because they covered their wingman (or at least he was flying with them) who would have been dead ~4 seconds after he got his check (getting valuable checks seems kind of rare some nights). The point here being that the immediate assumption is that anything said on 200 is either a whine, a slam, or sarcastic. Why are we here, now? Because of the elite bad tulips out there who have cultivated a pissing contest mentality.
Yeah, I got ganged, whatever... I chose my fight, just like I chose my plane. It's hugely frustrating to go from a plane that can run down most things to one that cannot. The balance is there though, superb climb, better guns, far superior acceleration, hugely better turn rate/radius over a good speed range... it's a great "fighter" but it's not a great "killer". The La-7, which I refuse to fly for various reasons, is probably the best low-alt "killer" in the game... but I'm definitely torn between the Bravo and the Ki-84 as I like them both for what they do. I can FORCE a fight in the Bravo... the Ki-84 is more situational depending upon adversaries.
The real rub, and tell-tale sign of b/s, is the fact that I can pick the hell out of someone in a Ki-84 and people will salute or say GJ... I can pull an amazing tracking shot at high speed in a Bravo and best case nothing, worst case some sob story pm or gemstone on 200.
So, last night, Pand must have been drinking because he ups a Ki-84... to "fight"... at a field with higher cons. And what happens? Some jerkwad in a Ki-84 at like 16k picks him. How am I supposed to drag him out of his roundly derided "pick and run pony" with that going on?
The argument about "runners"... people that literally make one pass and haul ass, only to come back 5 minutes later to do the same thing... that applies. The problem is, I see kill after kill in super low altitude turning engagements, made by mustangs of either flavor, and it's the same old b/s sob stories.
Lauded 109 pilot last night gets himself wacked in a turning engagement with a pony, no salute no nothing.
There is a certain community member who was on an extended state-funded hiatus... a legendary man, whose "Aces of Aces High Video" I have watched twice... and all I have seen is little girl whines about "boring fights" when he gets shot down.
What I have started to discover supports a theory that there are a great deal of players who are good or great 1 v 1, and either have no friends or simply can't hang in a combined arms theatre. (This is certainly not directed at you, Inksom)
People that disparage "The War" like it's not what the majority of the MA is doing, but rather some infantile attempt by those who cannot hack in a furball to find some shred of emergent gameplay that they can eek out a scrap of sense of achievement. People can argue all they want about how "The game is about combat, not capturing bases". The GAME will immediately call you a liar by gently urging you "Base under attack" (Or, even better, Scramble Scramble Enemies Inbound!). What it DOESN'T say is "Awesome furball forming! Bring an approved plane!"
I don't know ANYONE who doesn't like a furball. Guys that can survive a furball are an impressive lot to say the least, but it's visceral and exciting, and even a turd like myself can get a kill or two in one from time to time.
What's REALLY impressive to me and many others is watching a well executed attack on a defended base with a combined air and ground assault. Guys that can evade the La-7s to successfully place ordnance on a hangar or enemy tank, and then immediately turn to engage airborne defenders in a plane that is not dominant in a low turning engagement.
Bringing together a motley crew of guys from all over the world with all their little idiosyncratic baggage, egos, and love of the fruit of the vine to coordinate, execute, and successfully accomplish a combined arms assault is the stuff of legends, the aggregate accomplishment far greater than the sum of individual exploits that occurred along the way.
Pigeonholing one's self into any one role other than for enough time to become proficient or perhaps excellent at it, denying one's self the rewards of teamwork that can be derived from the staggering variety of tasks and accomplishments available to all players... this is folly. Aces High is, through all of its faults whether perceived or real, a shining example of something few if any other multi-player arenas still in existence have managed to achieve: A robust ecosystem, accessible to all, with the various learning curves enjoying a rather balanced effort to reward ratio, the result of which is an environment that transcends the cookie cutter lens flaring grindfests that everything else online has become.
Finding a fight is great... finding a fight where you can do what you want to do while simultaneously supporting the efforts of the team is not just the greater challenge, the greater glory, and the greater requirement for a wide spectrum of skills, but also available 7 days a week in the struggle to dominate the Main Arena.
