if u want to keep players...

[FLOOB]

That's a very far-fetched interpretation in my opinion. The last big drop in the rate of base captures, for example was simply caused by HTC makign them more difficult. The moments the new, larger towns were introduced, the number of captures dropped.
Not the players changed - the rules did.

But what the chart shows that the players of AH1 were capturing a mighty lot of bases for not caring about base captures at all.


I will not disagree that player motivations, game culture have changed and have some effects... but they are smaller than apparently perceived.
And the war had always played a big role in AH 1&2, bases had been grabbed by hordes or sneaked, fields had been shut down, CVs were sunk, and there was much ado about it on the BBS.
Even back in the golden days.

It's easy to take bases when everybody is out fighting instead of in a defensive horde getting kills on the jabo conveyer belt.
I'll give you an actual example, you can take light fighter and fly around an nme base in the ma and noboy is going to come up to try and kill you. You can even do a little bit of air to ground. But the moment it looks like that base is in danger of being captured, in comes the swarm of defenders.

[FLOOB]

But I'm interested to hear your suggestions on how to fix things. Or are you ok with the current state of MA gameplay?

[Lusche]

Or are you ok with the current state of MA gameplay?

No, but the things I dislike (for a better word) today are differing from those you (and probably a lot of other vets) do. I miss different things these days, some of which have just been caused by the ever shrinking populations - which to me in turn is again caused by multiple causes beyond mere "MA gameplay issues".

But excuse me - It's now 6:30 am and I have been awake the whole night... maybe I will write some more coherent thoughts tomorrow

[MrRiplEy[H]]

No not all, i was a bit angry when i wrote it and i suppose u shouldnt post in anger...
But still it isnt very fun to play when u are outnumbered by 6 to 1.

One guy even landed on our deacked and vulched field and i killed him, then he pm:ed me and told me i wasnt supposed to kill planes on the ground... 

I distinctly remember the days when Bish was steamrolling everyone else with a huge numbers advantage. It used to be like Bish 120 Knight 80 Rooks 50 typically. Back then your countrymembers used to give phrases like 'suck it up', 'call the waambulance' etc. So now I'm returning the favor 

[NatCigg]

I have to fly to enemy bases to get horded much anymore.  Most dar bars are DEFENDERS circling their area. 

And don't forget.  I'm not going to die over and over for your fun. I will find my own way to survive or play how I want so I have fun.

My advice would be to positively interact with your community and enjoy the ride.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I have to fly to enemy bases to get horded much anymore.  Most dar bars are DEFENDERS circling their area. 

And don't forget.  I'm not going to die over and over for your fun. I will find my own way to survive or play how I want so I have fun.

My advice would be to positively interact with your community and enjoy the ride.

Community service?

[The Fugitive]

Actually they cared a lote and captured bases at  much higher rates, not only in total but also per player/ per played hour. More players had much more base captures than today.

And there was a high incentive for winning the war, as for a logn time it was the only way to have a map change.

Back then there was more players so yes there were more captures. On top of that many squads worked as small attack forces (3-8 players) and took bases. Less ack and smaller towns made base capture easy.

As more ack was added and the towns got bigger, instead of players getting better/skilled they just added numbers. We lose the small attacks and add more hordes.

New players only see capture the flag because that is all that really goes on any more. Greebos map shows a great GV battle field, but on other maps you don't see or hear to much about GV battles. As for fighters and furballs, most of the greats are gone. Now we are stuck with mouthy little jerks WHO do nothing but annoy other players. The really great fighter jocks use to have banter across the radio and players would flock to find and fight these guys just to test themselves. Now players squelch to loud mouths, not to say these clowns are anything like those who have gone before. Today there is no longer that competition in fighter just for the sake of a good fight, now it's only bragging rights for childish egos.

As for fixes, I agree there needs to be some "WOW" added, but some of this can be added by the players themselves.

Post missions that are not only fun for the attacking force, but the possible defending force as well. Don't let the horde form, split it up.

Bring back squad competition. Don't build a squad just to have a squad, but make something of THAT squad. Be it a base capture squad, or a fighter sweep type squad, fly as a squad, practice and get good at what you do. HAVE A SQUAD NIGHT! get together at least once a week to fly together NOT IN A HORDE! Make a name for your selves. I'm sure there were many times people would bump up against one of our old missions and say "awww crap! It's the Mafia!". I know we said the same thing about the MAW and many others back in the day.

For HTC, add the fight to the base capture. Make it so ack will NOT come back up immediately after a capture. Create a 15 minute window were no matter what ack, nor rebuild time matter. If someone else drops troops in that 15 minute window the base switches hands again. Force the attacking players to cap/defend for 15 minutes if they want to keep the base. They may have captured the base by stealth, but can they hold it?

I hope they are looking into changing game play with this new update. They can make it as pretty as they want, but if it is still rotting from the inside it wont save it. I understand its a big sand box, but unless ways are found to make the different types of play clash they will lose more players than they keep.     

[Lusche]

Back then there was more players so yes there were more captures. On top of that many squads worked as small attack forces (3-8 players) and took bases. Less ack and smaller towns made base capture easy.

I wasn't alking about total number of base captures, I was talking about relative numbers - captures per player, captures per played hour, % of players with a credited base capture in the first place.
And yes, we had more captures back then because capturing bases was easier. I already mentioned that too.   Going to multiple arenas, seperating scores, increasing towns, introducing the flags.. all stuff like that had a direct and very notable impact on the rate of base captures, which is very much visible on the chart I posted above.

My point in this was a much simpler: To bust the myth that had again been brought up in this thread that almost nobody cared about the bases or the war back then. In fact, the population at large very much did, similar to today.

With the generation change there also had been changes in personal priorites and gaming culture, but in areas like this they are less radical that apparently being believed.
When it comes to the 'good old times', memory can be amazingly selected and blurred. Of course, mine can be too. But that's why I rely a lot on logs, data mining, message archives and personal diary entries  



A bunch of old men, sitting on the benches at the market square
Old Man 1: Back in my time, we didn't care about bases. It was only about the fight, and almost nobody ever captured a base at all! But the youth of today had to ruin everything!
Choir: Hear ye, hear ye!
Young Man: But Sire, I beg your pardon! The holy parchments show that you had yourself 34 base captures in tour 17 alone!
Choir: Shut up!

 

I hope they are looking into changing game play with this new update.

So do I hope... but I'm very much afraid that any such changes won't  meet my very own personal gameplay expectations and won't help my personal gameplay experience at all. I'm very sceptical about it.

[The Fugitive]

I wasn't alking about total number of base captures, I was talking about relative numbers - captures per player, captures per played hour, % of players with a credited base capture in the first place.
And yes, we had more captures back then because capturing bases was easier. I already mentioned that too.   Going to multiple arenas, seperating scores, increasing towns, introducing the flags.. all stuff like that had a direct and very notable impact on the rate of base captures, which is very much visible on the chart I posted above.

My point in this was a much simpler: To bust the myth that had again been brought up in this thread that almost nobody cared about the bases or the war back then. In fact, the population at large very much did, similar to today.

With the generation change there also had been changes in personal priorites and gaming culture, but in areas like this they are less radical that apparently being believed.
When it comes to the 'good old times', memory can be amazingly selected and blurred. Of course, mine can be too. But that's why I rely a lot on logs, data mining, message archives and personal diary entries  



A bunch of old men, sitting on the benches at the market square
Old Man 1: Back in my time, we didn't care about bases. It was only about the fight, and almost nobody ever captured a base at all! But the youth of today had to ruin everything!
Choir: Hear ye, hear ye!
Young Man: But Sire, I beg your pardon! The holy parchments show that you had yourself 34 base captures in tour 17 alone!
Choir: Shut up!

 


So do I hope... but I'm very much afraid that any such changes won't  meet my very own personal gameplay expectations and won't help my personal gameplay experience at all. I'm very sceptical about it.

Personally I love the "war" aspect of the game. I think anyone who likes to fight should, after all thats should be where the fights are. The biggest problem we have is the horde that roll over base after base avoid fights almost as easily as they roll bases.

I think it's possible to make the gameplay experience fun for everyone in the sandbox we all play in. Ways just need to be found to have these actions each clash with each other at times. You like to hunt buffs otw to HQ/strats. The compromise is that it still has to be fun for the buffs too. They have to have a chance to get in and out. A dedicated squad could make that happen easily. Newting buffs or bombs would drive away buff drivers from spending the time. So now you have fighters capping bases crying because a buff is too tough to take down 

Most of these issues could be cured with a player LEARNING how to play the game. For todays player that just seems to be too much trouble. HTC is going to have to come up with ways to nudge players into these other actions. NOE's were rampant at one time which was detrimental to gameplay. HTC made adjustments and now there are far fewer NOEs.... except on the island maps  It's time they look into adding more changes to bring more game play options to light for more players. 

[FLOOB]

Here's what my experience in the MA was this afternoon. But it's typical of everyday for the last couple of years at that time of day.

I see a green and red horde at one base on the rook front. I see a green and red horde at one base on the bish front, no thanks. The remaining 95% of this beautiful map that someone poured countless hours of selfless effort into creating is empty. I do see a few radar contacts at one base so I go there. I take off and fly toward the red dot. I'm about 7k when I ID the con, a p51 at about 13k. I think to myself, "how much you want to bet he ignores me, porks the field I just took off from and dies in the ack". To Make a long story short, that's exactly what he does.

I see some dots at the next base so I go there. It's a c47 and a 190, the town is white flagged. A friendly kills the c47, the 190 tries to kill the friendly but crashes into the ground. So I wait 5-10 minutes but no enemies are on the way, they've given up. Why are there no enemies on the way? Because they know if they come back there is going to be a fight. Which just shows that their priority was capturing the flag, not aerial combat. I auger and log off.

[Lusche]

Here's what my experience in the MA was this afternoon. But it's typical of everyday for the last couple of years at that time of day.

I see a green and red horde at one base on the rook front. I see a green and red horde at one base on the bish front, no thanks.

Lucky you.
This afternoon (US), many players didn't see any darbars or dots at all, because their HQ's were down, often for extended times.

[FLOOB]

Just because you can't see other players doesn't mean they don't exist. Come on people! What are we babies?

http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2009/object-permanence/

[LLv34_Dictonius]

I have been thinking of the current state of the game (with all the other "free" games around) and have come to an conclusion:

1. They should finally add the infantry aspect to the game
2. Make it free to play (infantry only).

This would add some dimension to the current war aspect of the game: it would be easily approachable to new players with only a mouse and keyboard. Those guys would propably soon look up, wonder what it would be like to fly those planes that keep on strafing them and soon go to a shop, buy some gaming hardware and subscribe to the game.

This might have too much work to actually become reality but it would certainly give the game some boost!

[DmonSlyr]

Ya know personally, I think the current state of the game would be a lot better if you all didn't suck terribly.  You could probably get a lot more kills if you didn't suck as bad as all of you do.

[Kodiak]

Ya know personally, I think the current state of the game would be a lot better if you all didn't suck terribly.  You could probably get a lot more kills if you didn't suck as bad as all of you do.

What if getting a bunch of kills doesn't do it for ya?  I put in massive hours about this time last year in furballs and started to approach a k/d of 2.0 (I know, not the vaulted numbers of some of you Skillz Gawds) and got bored to death just furballing.  And I thought to myself "at what point does becoming a Skillz Gawd become fun"...the answer for me was "never."

Then I flew as an escort for an ET bomber mission for the first time in 3 or 4 months and thought "now I feel like I'm back in WWII and having some fun."   Problem is, its really hard to find those full blown escort opportunities in the MA and I don't want to be a Skillz Gawd.