MA Off-peak is dying

[SirNuke]

an instant combat button would help, even with AI's as enemies

[pembquist]

You want to keep more of the new generation, you gotta give up something to get them past that long initial period of being only our TARGET paying their painful dues because we had to.

Fighter to Figther combat is the core of this game and probably the first thing attracting most new players. The biggest thing that gets them all killed is not knowing what to do after the merge. They all HO and run after loosing to the merge a few times and nothing else for the most part if they stay around for a while.


If it isn't easy to read and in front of their noses, they won't bother to do much else than hop in a ride and get frustrated. Aces High is not exactly War Blunder the Arcade Game now is it? Complexity drives people away.

Spot on. I would like to see some kind of dueling ladder that would match up new players of similar skill level who are on at the same time. One of the bigger frustrations for a new player is the time spent getting to a fight vs the time the fight lasts. One turn than death does not even get the adrenaline going, whereas 5 minutes of maneuvering against somebody as bad as yourself teaches volumes about the basics of SA and accelerated stalls. A little structure in this area might accelerate the learning curve.

[Gemini]

Spot on. I would like to see some kind of dueling ladder that would match up new players of similar skill level who are on at the same time. One of the bigger frustrations for a new player is the time spent getting to a fight vs the time the fight lasts. One turn than death does not even get the adrenaline going, whereas 5 minutes of maneuvering against somebody as bad as yourself teaches volumes about the basics of SA and accelerated stalls. A little structure in this area might accelerate the learning curve.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea...but...

A) It will never be implemented

B) The vast majority of players in AH don't actually want a fair fight

C) See A

[Brooke]

I wonder if a "beginners' arena" would help keep new players (an arena available only to accounts with less than X kills, with maybe some AI set to beginner skill flying around).  You'd have to preclude access by accounts from any credit card that ever had an account attached to it with more than X kills (so that you can cut down on losers to try to swindle their way into the arena when they shouldn't be there).

Also, in addition to stall limiter, maybe have blackout/redout limiter, with all the limiters and autotakeoff being enabled upon fresh install of the program.

[Brooke]

My feeling is that the best way to go with respect to off-peak is scaling active map area by numbers in flight.  By that, I mean disabling more and more outlying fields as player numbers go down, and enabling them as player numbers come back up.

However, perhaps another way to achieve the same is to scale incentives differently outside the desired area.  For example, once only N people are on, shooting someone down or destroying objects outside of a particular area is worth less, or it takes more bombs/shells/troops to kill objects in the outside area, or ack is more deadly in the outside area.  In other words, work on disincentives for flying in the outlying area.

[bustr]

Most people don't want a fair anything when the out come is them loosing. That's human nature. I'm targeting the new player who has no clue just how unfair this game really is. When you think about it, a common story for us all was, after a while someone told us a simple thing we could do in a given situation. Over night it changed our personal game play so we enjoyed the fight better because we had a better chance at getting the outcome we wanted.

Most of us have blundered around for years with no one sharing info because it's human nature not to share how to beat the other guy. $14.95 per\mnth says you aren't sharing anything that might mean you suddenly become a looser at the hands of the loosers you've been propping your ego up with for a few years now. Making them earn it the hard way while you beat their brains in over and over and over again is acceptable while you feed your ego.

That is too complex, time consuming, while most new potential subscribers just want to have fun. Not be your whipping boy just to play a stupid game.

So give the new and average players three things that will work to improve their game play if they have the ingenuity to work with them. Get them posted prudently where they see them all the time in the game. Three simple things to do at the merge to improve their outcome against other newbs and average players. The three simple things otherwise you would make them feed your need for hours in the DA, that you could have simply told them without beating their brains in as the price.

We are at a low numbers stage where we are top heavy in experienced hungry sharks. We won't impress new players with our type of game so they want to stay very long if all that happens is they die the moment they come near us. Most of them won't go to the TA, and we will never know they came, got abused, and went. But, at least we will have another scalp to feed our addiction while we complain about the low numbers and the death of the game in this forum.

[Tinkles]

Most people don't want a fair anything when the out come is them loosing. That's human nature. I'm targeting the new player who has no clue just how unfair this game really is. When you think about it, a common story for us all was, after a while someone told us a simple thing we could do in a given situation. Over night it changed our personal game play so we enjoyed the fight better because we had a better chance at getting the outcome we wanted.

Most of us have blundered around for years with no one sharing info because it's human nature not to share how to beat the other guy. $14.95 per\mnth says you aren't sharing anything that might mean you suddenly become a looser at the hands of the loosers you've been propping your ego up with for a few years now. Making them earn it the hard way while you beat their brains in over and over and over again is acceptable while you feed your ego.

That is too complex, time consuming, while most new potential subscribers just want to have fun. Not be your whipping boy just to play a stupid game.

So give the new and average players three things that will work to improve their game play if they have the ingenuity to work with them. Get them posted prudently where they see them all the time in the game. Three simple things to do at the merge to improve their outcome against other newbs and average players. The three simple things otherwise you would make them feed your need for hours in the DA, that you could have simply told them without beating their brains in as the price.

We are at a low numbers stage where we are top heavy in experienced hungry sharks. We won't impress new players with our type of game so they want to stay very long if all that happens is they die the moment they come near us. Most of them won't go to the TA, and we will never know they came, got abused, and went. But, at least we will have another scalp to feed our addiction while we complain about the low numbers and the death of the game in this forum.

Unless I missed it in this post. What exactly do you recommend be the "three things to improve gameplay?"  I'm all for improving the newbies experience, I just want to hear what you have to offer/ideas you have for this situation.

[bustr]

You didn't read very far back did you.

Post three simple ways to respond at the merge besides a HO which will help them have a higher chance of surviving the fight against new and average players.

Over the years, more than a decade, I've listened to this exact story repeated by new players. Eventually some vet mentions something simple to do just at the merge to a new player. This new player has suddenly gotten a new lease on his game life because no one up to that point would tell him anything in simple terms. It's always go to the TA, go to the DA, or an arcane answer only meaningful to someone who already knows the answer and never thought about a way to simplify it, or cared to. You don't know the new player, so why give out good advice to someone you don't know or are invested in?

Trainers are in the business of training and DA gods are in the business of DAing. No one ever gets up in the morning and asks themselves: How can I simplify this and put myself out of business?

It's Hitech's job in the end to invest in the future. We just want to win at all costs and feel good about our $14.95.

 

[Vraciu]

Small maps for low numbers time periods.

Bring back the free 8 player arenas.

Ditch MW and EW arenas.

Update cockpit graphics.

Enable lead computing gunsights for new players.   First 30 days.

[Tinkles]

Small maps for low numbers time periods.    +1

Bring back the free 8 player arenas.   Not sure on this, they were abused last time they were up, which was one of the big reasons why they were taken down.

Ditch MW and EW arenas.  -1 
 
Update cockpit graphics.  Probably will be happening with the new terrain update, or soon after

Enable lead computing gunsights for new players.   First 30 days.  Then I can make a 'shade account' (for example), and kill anyone with my 'aimbot like skillz'  IN a word, no.

[-aper-]

All of the great things that AH has going for it count for nothing when potential new players see something like War Thunder, which may be an inferior game, but is free and pretty.

Good graphics and Free-to Play mode are important but not the main factor in bringing a new customers into the game in big numbers.

If for example War Thunder had come to the market with only Full Realism Arena with joystick control only their project would have already been dead. Nice graphics and F2P would not have helped enough.

What makes War Thunder successful is a mouse control that gives new players an ability to play the game effectively by giving directions with mouse to internal AI pilot which performs the actual maneuvering. It is very easy to implement and very effective solution to bring the new players into the game.

What was not done well by War Thunder developers so far is that they did not achieve the goal of customer migration from mouse controlled arcade arenas to joystick controlled FRB arenas. Many players had already been hooked by gameplay and actually have bought joysticks but they found it to be too difficult to them to play the game with joysticks and after some attempts returned back to mouse controlled mode.

HTC still has a chance at that moment to implement these things better, if they want to get out of trouble with their shrinking customer base. The following steps should be done:

1) Effective mouse control must be implemented. It will immediately give the new people ability to play bombers and GVs effectively and for fighter pilots  will make it possible at least to learn the SA and some hit'n run tactics (with F3 mode with gunsite), but they should always be willing to migrate to joysticks to be competitive in dogfights.

2) After two week trial period a customer should get a clear message that from now on his is playing the game on Free - to Play basis with only early war planes and GVs available. If he wants to get access to the whole planeset he must subscribe.

3) Graphics updates and planeset updates are also important in bringing/keeping customers in the game but not a top priority at that moment.

[ImADot]

HTC still has a chance at that moment to implement these things better, if they want to get out of trouble with their shrinking customer base. The following steps should be done:

1) Effective mouse control must be implemented. It will immediately give the new people ability to play bombers and GVs effectively and for fighter pilots  will make it possible at least to learn the SA and some hit'n run tactics (with F3 mode with gunsite), but they should always be willing to migrate to joysticks to be competitive in dogfights.

Mouse control, sure. I think you can already play that way. You should have to fly the plane, not just point the mouse cursor somewhere and let the plane magically fly there. You need some skill.

External F3 mode as a choice in the main arenas? Absolutely NOT. Keep players in the cockpit if they want to fly fighters in the main arenas. This is a game, yes...but it's not supposed to be an arcade shooter game that happens to use airplanes.

[-aper-]

Mouse control, sure. I think you can already play that way. You should have to fly the plane, not just point the mouse cursor somewhere and let the plane magically fly there. You need some skill.

External F3 mode as a choice in the main arenas? Absolutely NOT. Keep players in the cockpit if they want to fly fighters in the main arenas. This is a game, yes...but it's not supposed to be an arcade shooter game that happens to use airplanes.

The chance to survive for HTC now is to make balanced arena where people with no skills (mouse control and F3 view) would be able to play vs people with skills (Joystick control and no F3 view) and where both parties will have fun.

[BaldEagl]

2) After two week trial period a customer should get a clear message that from now on his is playing the game on Free - to Play basis with only early war planes and GVs available. If he wants to get access to the whole planeset he must subscribe.

So if I'm willing to limit myself to EW equipment I don't have to pay?  I'm all in on that!

[-aper-]

So if I'm willing to limit myself to EW equipment I don't have to pay?  I'm all in on that!

You might have already spent a lot of money for the years you were subscribed to AH. Why not give you the opportunity to play for free with EW planes if you want to? If some ex-subscribers return back on F2P conditions it is better to have them playing in arenas to keep the numbers up. There will be no reason to quit, people will go to F2P if they not willing to be subscribers and can re-subscribe at any time when they feel it's the right time (to jump into the new planes for example, and HTC would be motivated better to bring new planes into the game).