Hordes and the game dynamic

[Scca]

Oh, and these numbers are also supported by your ~1700 total fighter perks earned in the past 7 tours, which can be looked up in the achievements.

??  This can be done out of game?

[Lusche]

??  This can be done out of game?

No.

[Fulcrum]

 

[SirNuke]

I know what you have been flying. I can see the numbers. I know exactly what you killed in which plane and how many perks you get for each individual kill. That can be calculated.
Last tour you got 60 kills in the Ki-43 (ENY), and the killed planes were worth ~176 perks, ~3 perks per kill. I'm not guessing that. Even when being generous with landing modifier and perk bonus, you are not getting anywhere near the average numbers you claim.

All kills in all planes last tour totaled 386 perks, even with assumed perk bonus of 1.25 and all sorties landed (actually you land less than 1 sortie in 5)  that would have been 'only' about 600 perks, less than 2 perks per sortie.

I'm absolutely sure you had 10-20 perk sorties in that tour, but not on average, not by any means.
Your memory is fooling you.

Oh, and these numbers are also supported by your ~1700 total fighter perks earned in the past 7 tours, which can be looked up in the achievements.

creepy 

[Fulcrum]

creepy 

Indeed.   

Would this qualify as "stalking"?   

[SirNuke]

Indeed.   

Would this qualify as "stalking"?   

I'd call it psychostatistics

[dirtdart]

Snailman.... sigh.

Please add "lately and landed" to my post. I bail or crash or whatever out of boredom... often.

THE point is that ride choice dictates what you earn. It also forces you to get better without a safety net. All the player has to do is risk a little to gain large perk rewards as opposed to flying 163s against strat runners or flying around in high speed rides and picking slower fights.

Last tour was a fine example of how convoluted bomber score is in terms of what it rewards.  Bomber=Strategic Weapon. I really only flew the first two weeks (look that one up, if memory serves me correctly) and still took #1 because I cracked the code on how to get the most points, the #1 score had NOTHING to do with any strategy, it was merely gaming the game. Same for fighter, attack, etc... I guarantee you I did not contribute one iota to the general fight, all I did was serve myself and my need to have a distraction while I did coursework.

What has HTC done to change that paradigm? When will a strat run yield more damage per sortie potential then porking town centers? I would argue that this game attempts a console style of play veiled by a simulator. This does nothing but confuse the personality of the game and the people attracted to it.

[waystin2]

(Image removed from quote.)

[BluBerry]

I know what you have been flying. I can see the numbers. I know exactly what you killed in which plane and how many perks you get for each individual kill. That can be calculated.
Last tour you got 60 kills in the Ki-43 (ENY), and the killed planes were worth ~176 perks, ~3 perks per kill. I'm not guessing that. Even when being generous with landing modifier and perk bonus, you are not getting anywhere near the average numbers you claim.

All kills in all planes last tour totaled 386 perks, even with assumed perk bonus of 1.25 and all sorties landed (actually you land less than 1 sortie in 5)  that would have been 'only' about 600 perks, less than 2 perks per sortie.

I'm absolutely sure you had 10-20 perk sorties in that tour, but not on average, not by any means.
Your memory is fooling you.

Oh, and these numbers are also supported by your ~1700 total fighter perks earned in the past 7 tours, which can be looked up in the achievements.

  told!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Its funny how a lot of these guys say just up a jet, or dive in and get 3-4 kills. You do realize that most of the people who play or are in this thread complaining rarely get 2 kills a flight? Their hit percentage in the 1-2 area, and most don't have a positive K/D. That maens they don't eran a lot of perks and so can't afford a jet. So they use non perked planes.... OK they dive in a few times missing more often than not MAYBE killing one or two if they get enough rounds in them.

For the average player.... and I don't mean these guys that "think/call" themselves average like what's his name running 262's for the month of November, or anyone else that flies 80 plus hours a month..... fighting the horde really isn't an option. It is death after death helping their team little or not at all. Bombing barracks and ammo dumps are an option, but personally I prefer to fight something that is going to fight back. I can flatten buildings all day long rarely missing but it isn't all that much fun nor very challenging. I'm sure there are other that find it far too challenging.

My brother in law just started playing again after being off for 6-7 years. He was complaining that all he can find is hordes and his rust is really holding him back to the point that one kill before he dies is awesome! his son, 16 years old got the itch playing on my computer and then when his dad started he tried on his for a bit. He flies WT now. Doesn't want to be bothered with trying to learn the game as all he gets to do is climb out and die here. On top of that these guys who have no trouble with the horde have the time to mess with the horde. What did Lusche say, average time is around 20 hours a tour? Thats less than an hour a night to fight a fight or two where your not being picked by 5 or more guys all the time. With that kind of time to play how is it possible to get better at anything other than dieing if you spend it trying to fight the horde?

If the average player CAN'T fight the horde that only leaves flying IN the horde. How long is that going to be fun? More and more people get bored or frustrated every day. And the numbers continue to drop.

Well said. There was a time when I played over 100 hours a tour. Back then rooks were always in the 'bucket' on my timezone where we had to combat double to triple numbers every time I logged in. It was annoying then, but my high play hours made me competitive enough to stand my ground. Now that I had only 2 to 20 hours / tour play time going anywhere near a horde would most likely end up in being picked by the n:th player zooming while you try to kill the first one. Mind you I have been playing AH since beta and even ranked nr 1 in fighters one tour so I'm not exactly a noob in the game.

There's only so long a person can keep hitting their head to the wall when odds are totally lopsided against you. Many times when I had the choice to make - should I up against the horde and expect to die a quick death - or boot up BF3 and do some FPS pwnage, I found out that more and more often it was more fun to ditch the 15-20 minute climb to getting killed 10 to 1.

[Lusche]

Would this qualify as "stalking"?   

 



I'm afraid my main point is getting a bit lost among this. it's not about Dirtdarts perk gains.
It's about how easy it is, to base gameplay discussions like this one on global assumptions created from very subjective personal perceptions. I'm not excluded from that myself. Once I also had the opinion "it's soooooo easy to get the perks for the 262" because it was based on my own perception as well.
Only when I did take a closer look at the actual data I realized how astonishingly high I - and most posters here on the BBS - are above the 'average player'. There is one awkward tendency of false modesty, with everyone declaring himself as "not that good" or "I'm purely average" just because we get kicked around by even better players and die a lot in the main.
Joe Average dies a lot more. Joe plays a lot less. It takes ages for Joe Average to scrap together the perks for a Me 262 sortie, in which he will die after 2-3 kills... if he's that lucky at all. And Joe Average just can't 'get better' by practicing a lot and learning, because it's just a game and not many players are able to put that many hours into 'working' on their skills. (In addition, if everybody would do that and improve their skill, nothing would change either - there still would be a small group of 'aces' clubbing the masses)

[dirtdart]

My perception is off, to me perks are easy come easy go. I remember when they were not. Just made a choice to get better.

In the end, I am just very saddened by the decline in players and the result. Like water, the remaining players are flocking to the paths of least resistance.

[The Fugitive]

My perception is off, to me perks are easy come easy go. I remember when they were not. Just made a choice to get better.

In the end, I am just very saddened by the decline in players and the result. Like water, the remaining players are flocking to the paths of least resistance.

Exactly! It's how most games are play these days. Players start a game by diving in and get their a..es handed to them so again they look for the easy way and they figure it's time to google the codes! Well we all know that doesn't work around here so they come back and try again. Some like my nephew quit and google other flight sims and jump head long into WT. Others stick it out only to find that they have less frustration while they are in the horde. More targets so they get to live a bit longer. So when they log in they look for the biggest horde to join. And so it continues.

HTC could change the game play by tweaking a few settings, and/or adding a few features to shall we say "guide" game play toward a more strategic type game. They did it before when someone logged on one weekend and saw nothing but NOEs popping up all over the place and disappearing just as fast. They changed the dar alts and circles and boy did we see a change. A week or two later they tweaked the settings and while you don't see NOE's as the main mission any more you do still see them so they were not totally removed. The same could be done for the hordes. Not take them away totally, but make them less attractive so you don't see them as the "main mission" any more.

I think if the game went back to the squad groups like we had in the old days were a squad of 10-12 would attack a base for their squad night and a like squad would up to defend it. You'd see battles all over the map again and any one logging on could which ever kind of fight they want. New players would be more involved in their squad as instead of being one of 75-80 squad mates they would be more front and center. Squad mates would notice them more bring them into the conversations, spot the errors and help them correct them all for the fun of it and to make your squad that little bit better.

[PFactorDave]

HTC could change the game play by tweaking a few settings, and/or adding a few features to shall we say "guide" game play toward a more strategic type game.

I'm curious what you suggest they change?

I think the ability to close airfields/or vulch a field closed is a major contributor to horde behavior personally.  I'd like to hear your thoughts on what could be changed.

[WWhiskey]

My perception is off, to me perks are easy come easy go. I remember when they were not. Just made a choice to get better.

In the end, I am just very saddened by the decline in players and the result. Like water, the remaining players are flocking to the paths of least resistance.

was a fun fight today!  <S>