Vehicle dar bar

[Wiley]

Wow, that escalated quickly.

Reasonable points.  I hereby label it a Bad Idea^tm.

Wiley.

[bustr]

1am-4am PST Bozon is correct about finding something to fight.

All over the map bases are flashing with a single red darbar box or just the feild\town flashing. One night I jumped through about 12 towers out of curiosity. A few lone bomber boxes milk running, couple of solo jabo milk running, a few storch acrobats fiddleing around, and lots of single GV thinking they were being sneeky along with the ever present ubiquitous camped GV bases lobbing rounds at distance. No one seeking Combat other than about 5 or 6 guys furballing if you were lucky to be in one of the two countries participating. Kind of gives credence to doing something about country switch time to address non US prime time off hours.

We turning into WoT during the off hours from what I can see lately.

It would be great for your score if you could switch once every 60min so you could carpet bomb the tanks with a few freinds in LancStukas. Bet WoT don't got that!!

[bozon]

Plane movements across the map, and thus across the grids are much more dynamic. In this context, GVs are absolutely static. With a plane, as long as it's not in the base dar circle, it could be almost anywhere at in a 25x25 mile square, at any altitude. The moment you see a gv 'dar' box apprearing on a grid, you do absolutely know where the con is within a few thousand feet radius. It's just a big "bomb me" sign appearing on the map the map the moment someone spawns, you could also enable enemy GV dot's on the map with an effect not much bigger.

All distances are scaled down when it comes to GV. They are much more difficult to spot from the air than planes. Beyond the very short icon range, they can also hide in buildings and under trees. Just sitting next to a building makes them invisible from a wide solid angle. Many bases have more than one spawn point next to them and unless you started searching very shortly after they spawned, they can be quite far from the spawn. Friggin flaks often surprise me when I fly low looking for GVs.

The dar bar is no needed to hunt the single GV. The single GV is uninteresting for me. The dar bar is needed in order to identify a major ground battle that is developing. Hording is bad enough - hording when the other country does not even know that there is a horde is worse.

Furthermore does nobody thinks anymore that having a bit "fog of war" can actually be fun? Base radar is down, base or town are flashing - NOE (yes, they still happen, fortunately) or a GV inbound?  What is more likely? Is there GV spawn at all? Let's find out! Or is that too much uncertainty and excitement? Maybe we could increase dot dar all over the map, with contact type and altitude given as well /rant  

[muzik]

But there has to be something that causes you to use it. I don't think there's a cadre of storch pilots flying around every front field looking for GVs and, as bozon pointed out, there should be some way to differentiate whether the base is flashing from vehicle or air activity.

Regards,

Hammer

Giving perks for time flown in storch maybe. Newbs who dont have the skill to rack up perks using fighters could earn their perks this way. I have always thought that aircraft should have the ability to "mark" an enemy unit in a way that shows up on the map.

[Bruv119]

with the icon reduction and the increase in GV usage to capture all of our bases I say +1 to this idea,

A simple  >5 >10 >15   

so when a bunch of guys are sitting around at lets say v85 spawn waiting on some poor schmuck to spawn for him to have 10 shells launched at him in unison (even dare I say some from behind)  he can instead look at the map and see that he doesn't want no part of it.

If the attack is <5 GV's it does not show as is apart from the flash. 

[bustr]

Since the darbar gives a very rough idea of the number of cons and freindlies in a sector. I doubt it would be very hard to add another bar, say two pixels wide to give a rough idea of GV activity in a sector, or active from each spawn. The flashing town kinda gives away that an enemy GV is in range of the town so you just fired up a flare anyway if anyone is looking. Just like a flashing feild with a BIG RED BAR gives away that aircraft are in the radar ring to promote combat.

Most of the time when I check out a flashing town after prime time it's a single GV. I can see Bozon's point during after hours that he want's to go where the fight is and not where a teenybopper is trying to get lucky by himself with his popgun. This game is about promoting Combat. So if everyone can see the same growing GV darbar, you will get Combat instead of 10 guys sneaking around avoiding a fight. You cannot be everywhere, and groups rely on that to avoid having to fight.

As for a GV darbar screwing the element of surprise. FLASHING TOWN as soon as you spawn your GV assult. Just like flashing feild as soon as the NOE hits the ring and growing darbar as soon as they pop. It promotes combat. Otherwise if we didn't have flashing feilds and darbar most players would opt for chicken suits and capturing feilds against ZERO defenders. OOPSIES zero combat. I paid $14.95 for this crapola and it Offends meee to dieeeee..........I will sneak around so you cannot Offennddd meeee. ScAreuoooww your Frikken Combbatttttt and the horse you rode in on.......

Remember the vTards?? We bad, We bad, we can NOE surprise the farthest away feild from any combat with 60 guys and take it becasue...NO Body Is Home To Defend It From 60 Guys in Chicken Suits.

[Nathan60]

I just dont see how this is any kind of improvement over a flashing town or base.

[Megalodon]

This would dumb the game even more like capture the flag did

[bustr]

At least you would have the option to find the biggest number of GV's to fight. Or donn your Super Chicken suit and single handedly attack the farthest empty base from all the action on the map. It's not like HiTech would enable dots to the ground level to show you each and every GV's position. Just where to go if you want to fight other tanks.

During prime time you get the equivalent to the GVDAR from watching green text or even asking on green text where the GV's are. So GVDAR would be an AI recon report like forward scouts and listening posts phoned in tank positions after DDay. Our radar is an AI observer corp phoning in to update our plotting map in effect.

It's kind of overkill for prime time with the amounts of free intel for the asking. But, then the game changes personality during the off Prime time Bozon logs in. You have players scattered all across the map avoiding combat. I suspect he wants GVDAR not for defence but, to find where his country is engaged with the largest number of GV in one area to maximise his time online. Or at least have the odds of the lone GV not being a guy in a wirbel at the spawn suckering a low level recon flight. It's better odds if it's multiple GV some are tanks who want to fight.

GVDAR or no GVDAR, GV are going to get bombed and shot at once it's evident they are flashing a base. The base flashing thingy is gamey in reality if you are talking about arcadiness. And thats the rub. Do you want combat or the illusion that sneaking around in a kiddy combat game is some kind of strategy while the map is flashing and whailing away that you are in range of a base?

Bozon makes a very good point. What are you paying $14.95 to HTC to do with your very precious short playing time in a Combat game? Avoid combat until you can shoot the other guy in the back when he's afk in the jon? Poor Bozon, he can't even find the other guy to shoot in the back many times during his hours online. Many of this audience play during Prime time from which refrence are throwing Bozon under a bus.