Change town / strat point values

[dirtdart]

Good day.

There is little incentive to striking the strats. Most bomber guys can easily exceed the damage values of a strat run in an aircraft with half the capacity, in half the time, by hitting town centers. In my opinion, one of the reasons strats go undefended is because there is not a continuous bomber stream headed into them. The reason for this, is frankly, it is generally not worth the trouble to fly into the strats. My score (presently #1 in bomber) is illustrative of this point. Pure town hits, doing nothing but desynching the ground fight, and contributing nothing to the overall war effort. (why... you might ask ... precisely this wish)

I would argue that objects in the strats need their point values tripled. Town objects need their values drastically reduced. This would force bomber guys to run at the strats, countries to defend their strats, and maybe, just maybe make the fight a bit more strategic then a furball over a single base resulting from a horde attack.

[Karnak]

Not just score rewards but also perk rewards.  Many players don't give a fig about score but do use town centers for perk farming.  Myself included in that group.

[Tank-Ace]

If people are trying to perk farm at the strats, they're doing something wrong  .

[dirtdart]

You are missing the point.

[SmokinLoon]

Ignoring scoring and ranking altogether... just how important is bombing strats to the entire country now?  For someone to put ranking and scoring in the "just cause" category means they are not looking at the picture.  I understand the concept of making the strat targets worth more, but in terms of coding just what is the difference between destroying a house in a town or a building in the ammo factory?

The scoring, ranking, and "name in lights" are a bane on game play.  I firmly believe that if they were taken away from the game much would change for the better.  But then again, Napoleon's saying holds very true in Aces High: "A soldier (AH player) will fight long and hard for a little piece of ribbon (score, rank, name in lights)".  Too bad, really.

[dirtdart]

Again missing the point. The ideal ah world is every flys a fighter and furballs. Gv are never bombed.

When a country is on a roll, their ability can be hindered through the destruction of strategic targets. My argument is plain. This has nothing to do with name in the lights it has everything to do with incentivizing an underused aspect of the game. 

If there is no incentive to hit the strats, then why have strats?

[Lusche]

If there is no incentive to hit the strats, then why have strats?

My line of arguing would be a bit different.
Because the incentive is already there: The big impact bombing the strats has on that side vs the 0 impact on them by bombing random towncenters. That's the reason almost 80% of my bombs, as well as lots of bomb by other players land on the strats.

My argument would be like this: The most protected (obvious route giving interceptors time to climb, Me 163 cover, ack fire) and most impacting target should also yield the biggets reward. In my opinion, that would be 'fair'.
Compared to that, bombing random town centers from high altitude is a very safe thing, and thus should be rewarded lesser.

[Tinkles]

My line of arguing would be a bit different.
Because the incentive is already there: The big impact bombing the strats has on that side vs the 0 impact on them by bombing random towncenters. That's the reason almost 80% of my bombs, as well as lots of bomb by other players land on the strats.

My argument would be like this: The most protected (obvious route giving interceptors time to climb, Me 163 cover, ack fire) and most impacting target should also yield the biggets reward. In my opinion, that would be 'fair'.
Compared to that, bombing random town centers from high altitude is a very safe thing, and thus should be rewarded lesser.

Agreed.  Making it so if you want more bomber perks and want to "perk farm" go be productive and hit the strats

[The Fugitive]

Ignoring scoring and ranking altogether... just how important is bombing strats to the entire country now?  For someone to put ranking and scoring in the "just cause" category means they are not looking at the picture.  I understand the concept of making the strat targets worth more, but in terms of coding just what is the difference between destroying a house in a town or a building in the ammo factory?

The scoring, ranking, and "name in lights" are a bane on game play.  I firmly believe that if they were taken away from the game much would change for the better.  But then again, Napoleon's saying holds very true in Aces High: "A soldier (AH player) will fight long and hard for a little piece of ribbon (score, rank, name in lights)".  Too bad, really.

As it seems that score, rank, and perks are the driving force of hit the targets that people do (town centers) why not use that "carrot" to .... shall we say "guide" players toward more strategic/tactical type of game play? I think having the strat being worth far more would generate more fights on the way to, and over the strats. Even if you say ....like Lusche said "it should be more important due to the risk", it doesn't matter as long as it creates more fights.

[bustr]

I've listened to some who occasionally bomb the strats. Their reason for it being once in awhile is the time involved. Time to the fight, or to engage your idea of fun dictates many aspects of our game. Older vets don't bother as much to climb above 12-15k in fighters. Many complain when the transit time between fields is a single sector. GVers would rather spawn camp or pick a spawn closer than farther. No one sits on a CV for the 60min it will take to be in 8inch town range. Sixty minutes in the MA is a lot of fun time.

Since the MA is not ww2 but, an arena filled with ww2 toys to do anything you want. And FSO and the AvA have seen fit to utilize air spawns for bombers to maintain a scenario time frame. Make one of the two uncapturable airfields near the HQ a four engine bomber air spawn base. 17k on large maps. 12k on medium maps. 7k on small maps. Time is the biggest investment to bombing strats. Cutting down some of that time invested might make the prospect more attractive to other than hardcore vets and the occasional doing it for a lark players. If it took fewer bombs to drop the strat per bomber, that would be more attractive.

Changes like this would appeal to the energizer grief bunnies getting more traffic to your strats. More traffic to just about everywhere a bomb load from 20k can be hauled at the speeds our four engine bombers travel. Then the question would be, will the furballers care? Or will they keep furballing while their Rome burns down around them because of not wanting to spend the time getting to 20k to deal with the energizer grief bunnies.

Another thought would to make the bomber air spawn base a moveable construct like the strat to cut down on even more time. We already see with CV, players will let their Rome burn down around their ears. So having the air spawn base start out closer to the front probably wouldn't destabilize the arena. Might make for a good loitering area to take a 410 to.

 

[dirtdart]

Bustr, while I would appreciate an airspawn, I would just end up camped, regardless of where it was... lol. v85 is a great example of how some folks can sit idle for hours just pointing and clicking.

The point of this thread, is not to solicit a change to the overall manner in which bombers are employed, but to incentivize the strats and deincentivize the towns. I fail to see a code argument, since the buildings in the town are town objects, strats are strat targets, in my mind it is a simple number entry. Lets take a couple of seconds to look at players:

Fast fun guys: They don't up bombers. The only bombers they want to see are lancs at 6k so they can quickly kill them and be on their way. What do they really care about a bomber discussion other than crap, if they all go to the strats I will actually have to kill bombers in my K4 like the real ones, at the correct altitudes....

Score guys: Well, they have all of the math figured out and understand how to game the game. Me, for example in bombers this month. I just looked at the score breakdown and figured what was the optimal way to achieve that. Hell, you can be top 20 fighters just by parking at the HQ in a 163 and waiting. Probably have a high KD, low kill per time, and high accuracy%.

Perk farmers: Guys who want to try out different airplanes in the planeset. Or... guys who feel some satisfaction is being rewarded for and investment of time.

Historical guys: Guys who fly at operational alt, fly as accurately as possible, try to land because the thrill is getting in and out of trouble, not just get into trouble, tower, rinse repeat. (Fast fun guys hate these guys)

I imagine this discussion of changing strat values has been discussed at HTC. I think it needs to be revisited. The paradigm of the game has become singular in nature. In my mind the console guys are winning. Fly the shortest possible time and be rewarded with the greatest possible points. Sounds like it belongs at gamestop.   

[asterix]

Reduced reward for town bombing seems like a good idea. For me there is already a great value in bombing the strats.

[Hap]

Increase perks for strat bombing.  Decrease perks for town center milking.

[SmokinLoon]

The system is all based on damage delivered. It does not differentiate between ordnance bunker, town building, or factory.  Unless HTC is willing to "coad" in some modifier and put town buildings in a class all their own, not much can be done I'd be willing to bet.

Don't get me wrong, I think there should be a bigger "reward" for bombing factories and the city vs town buildings.  Question is though just how does that get accomplished with the "coading" as it currently is?   

[bustr]

Fundamentally I think the only players who care about numbers of any kind other than: am I there yet? Are fewer than the short attention span crowd who probably only play the game and never take part in this forum. I was simply thinking in the vein of getting more targets into the air flying bombers. Over the last decade the common complaint about bombers: takes too long to get anywhere for the amount of time I have in my evening.

Air starts for 4 engine bombers - shortens the time spent being bored.
Reduce the hardness of the strats - more bang for your buck, more interest bombing it than once or twice a tour. Up the resupply effect and reward for strat just a smidge.

Complex processes in this game get ignored by the majority. Time is a complexity when talking about investing it in fun with limited play time.

If this game is simply code. The code god can separate the strat objects from town objects and split the scoring function. If he so chooses.

Making the strat more achievable as a bombing target with better results per bomb gets to the heart of the process of bombing the strats. Once that is accomplished, then it may be irrelevant what the payoff is for strat versus town. More players will be interested in expending the time visiting the strat with bombers. Unless you really don't want more players flying bombers to the strat. Instead you simply want Hitech to give you more rewards for choosing to expend the current amount of trip time. And by happenstance the small cadre of strat visitors as they stand now.