A New War

[TW9]

I in a real world sense.  If deaths in game were real, yes, killing a bunch of nme would clearly have an impact just as it does in real war.  Real deaths (or the prospect of it) make people surrender even though they still have the numbers to put up a good fight.

This however is a game with options that allow you to participate as you wish.  You shouldn't have to be forced to bomb stuff or GV if you don't want to, nor should anyone complain if all you do is furball.  There is room for everyone and every style of play in the game.  It's not, and really shouldn't 100% be about winning the war.  It should be about having fun. 

Now, go have fun...  That's an order 

I'm not sure where anyone  would be forced to do anything. Could you point to what you're referring to when you say that?

[The Fugitive]

Joe player really wouldn't have to think much about anything. He'd be helping the country simply by doing what he likes to do. It's really not all that complicated.

And btw the game is in fact marketed towards the WWII enthusiast types and not toward the average gamer. The only channel theyve ever advertised on is the history channel and maybe the military channel. You can ask across other games if anyone has even heard of AH and the answer would be mostly no. AH intentionly does not tap into those markets. If you ever had to deal with the obnoxiousness of say the WoW community, you would see why.

The game is in fact not marketed towards anyone, nor has it been for a long time. They advertized it a couple times on TV, and I think they pushed for an interview with a "SIM" site, as well as a a "boxed" version they pushed in Europe, but thats is it. The rest has always been word of mouth and the gift of Google. A massive marketing campaign is needed, but can they afford it?

As for the suggestions, you seemed to have added a lot of work the HTC for very little gain if everyone will "continue to do what they like". Whats the point? Game play will stay pretty much the same..... stale.

If your going to make a change it should have some impact on game play, not be just another way to do the same thing. You want a points system, assign point to fields and vehicle bases. Bases easy to reach from the water are worth 1 point, Large field circled by other bases worth 5, with each field around it worth 3, vehicle field 2. Instead of a percentage of fields to "Win the War", you need a number of points. Lots and lots of little fields, or a number of larger fields. Make the bases worth something, maybe defenders will fight better to hold off the attack so as to NOT lose those points.

As already mentioned, you are assuming that person actually cares who is winning the war.   So many don't.  They could care less about points, or rank, or anything that doesn't have to do with a good fight.  I honestly feel this is the larger representation of populace in the game.  (but I could be wrong).

I do applaud you for looking outside the box.  I do however see a few snags.  You are presuming that everyone has a "country".  My squad rotates each month, some folks rotate once or twice a day for one single reason... to find a fight.... 

While this isn't WWII, it's loosely based on war during the period.  In that time, you didn't win a war by doing damage, you won a war by taking ground. 

I guess I am just not seeing your vision... -1

Sure, not EVERYONE looks to "Winning the War", but if that goal generates more fights isn't that a good thing? As it stand now there is only two real ways to take bases, horde, or NOE from the sea (NOE missions go up big time on "island" maps). If some mechanic was added that brought other ways to capture bases, and win the war it may also generate more battles. While I don't have the time a patience to run missions any more I love seeing them as it becomes a place to find a fight, if you can get there BEFORE they roll the base.

If we had more "action" would it bring in more numbers? Don't know, but I think it might help keep the ones we have.

[TW9]

I simply asked for change. Take it with a  grain of salt or however you'd like. It's a wish list forum and I made a wish. It's not perfect but its at least a suggestion. Status quo has not worked and has only pushed players away or has not been enticing enough to keep new players around. I think it's pretty obvious that the current format as induced a playing style that's not very attractive in relation to other games.

[Wiley]

I think it's pretty obvious that the current format as induced a playing style that's not very attractive in relation to other games.

That's a double edged sword though.  Some of us (many? most?) are here because of the playstyle.  It's the only open world flight game out there.  If the other games' playstyle were more attractive to me, I would be playing them.

Wiley.

[TW9]

That's a double edged sword though.  Some of us (many? most?) are here because of the playstyle.  It's the only open world flight game out there.  If the other games' playstyle were more attractive to me, I would be playing them.

Wiley.

Exactly it is a double edge sword. Now this is entirely just my opinion but it seems that right around the time AHII came out HTC decided to cater to what was thought to be a majority but was actually just a vocal minority and the game has since teetered a certain way while pushing other players away. Now I think its effects have taken place. I can't say if this was purposely or just a side effect of something else they wanted to implement.

Now its always easy to say that things were better in the past. We naturally think that with everything. But I think in the case of AH it is actually true. Things were better for at least most of us when maps were smaller, fields were smaller, and it didn't take long to find something to do.

[Wiley]

Exactly it is a double edge sword. Now this is entirely just my opinion but it seems that right around the time AHII came out HTC decided to cater to what was thought to be a majority but was actually just a vocal minority and the game has since teetered a certain way while pushing other players away. Now I think its effects have taken place. I can't say if this was purposely or just a side effect of something else they wanted to implement.

Now its always easy to say that things were better in the past. We naturally think that with everything. But I think in the case of AH it is actually true. Things were better for at least most of us when maps were smaller, fields were smaller, and it didn't take long to find something to do.

I don't know.  My pet theory is the reason numbers are down is because open world pure PVP MMO just isn't popular because of some of the gameplay it breeds (hording being the big one).  If you look around, the closest thing to this other than WBs is Planetside 2.  It started out big, probably has much less than 25% of the players it had in the beginning.

The majority prefer round based and 'fair fights' as opposed to open world.  In the backwhen, if you wanted to fly WWII birds online you had this and WBs.  People tolerated the open world because it was the only game in town.  Games like WT came along and we lost most of the people who were tolerating the open world because there was nothing else that had similar gameplay against decent numbers of enemy until WT came along.

In other words, IMO unless the fundamental core of the gameplay changes, it will never be popular and is doomed to a slow death.  And on the other side, if that fundamental core changes to something like WT, I am out of here.

Wiley.

[Lusche]

I don't know.  My pet theory is the reason numbers are down is because open world pure PVP MMO just isn't popular because of some of the gameplay it breeds (hording being the big one).  If you look around, the closest thing to this other than WBs is Planetside 2.  It started out big, probably has much less than 25% of the players it had in the beginning.

The majority prefer round based and 'fair fights' as opposed to open world.  In the backwhen, if you wanted to fly WWII birds online you had this and WBs.  People tolerated the open world because it was the only game in town.  Games like WT came along and we lost most of the people who were tolerating the open world because there was nothing else that had similar gameplay against decent numbers of enemy until WT came along.

Yet within AH, the most unbalanced, unfair and to a extend horded arena, the Old main / current LW has always been the most popular one. All these years, only a  (at least to me) surprisingly small  fraction of the players did play the balanced scenarios or did regularly fly in the much better balanced setups of  MW or AvA (even when the AvA didn't had shorter icon ranges.)
The arena with the most varied options for gameplay won.

[Wiley]

The arena with the most varied options for gameplay won.

People think they want that variety when they may or may not actually want it, plus numbers following numbers.

Wiley.

[Lusche]

People think they want that variety when they may or may not actually want it, plus numbers following numbers.

As for numbers followiing numbers: After arena split, the numbers were much greater for EW & MW for a week or so... then folks gradually slipped back to LW.

[TW9]

I don't know.  My pet theory is the reason numbers are down is because open world pure PVP MMO just isn't popular because of some of the gameplay it breeds (hording being the big one). 

Thats why I suggested deactivating fields based on the amount of players online. This would force players to interact with other players (Why else play an MMO?). And I don't mean horde vs horde or anything that drastic. Just increasing the odds of actually running into someone. The point system was just an idea to deter people from hording and make it more beneficial to actually find a fight that is more evenly matched. If theres another system someone else comes up with that can achieve the same thing then of course I am all for it.

[Kingpin]

(Apologies for the wall of text, but this idea had enough merit to flesh out, IMO.)

Getting back to the original topic, or a portion thereof, I'd love to see a game mechanic where killing the enemy (or losing assets) affected the "big picture" of winning the war.

I like the idea of making it a "reward" for the opposing side/sides though, as opposed to a "penalty" to your own, but in simple terms, if you lose an aircraft/vehicle you hurt your own side by helping the enemy.  This could be as simple as reducing the downtime on all enemy objects a little for the "rewarded" side(s).  What this could represent, if you wanted to justify it in realistic terms, is the relative production impact of loss of war materiel.  In other words, when you lose units, the enemy's downtime decreases, because their relative production (or "excess production capacity" if you want to call it that) went up.

For example, Bishop Player loses a set of Lancasters while bombing a town.  All 3 Lancs are lost, so the opposing sides (Rook and Knight) BOTH get a relative "production boost".  Dowtimes for all objects on their side goes down by "x" number of seconds.  The number of seconds applied to enemy downtime could be relative to a number of things: like 1) arena population (less impact when more players are fighting/dying) 2) asset value, i.e. losing a Tiger tank rewards the enemy more than losing a Panzer, losing a B17 helps the enemy more than losing a Brewster, etc.

I think this mechanic alone potentially addresses several gripes about the game, as follow:

1) Furballing would now contribute to your side's war effort, as killing enemy planes helps as long as you are destroying more enemy assets than you are losing.No more complaints from the war winners that "furballing is pointless".

2) Bomb-augering/kamikaze style play is less helpful to your side as losing a plane just reduces the effectiveness of your attack.  Diving a low ENY plane into a target helps the enemy.

3) Defending against the horde can actually be effective.  Instead of just resupping or M3/goon hunting, "making the enemy pay" by attritting ANY of their assets actually helps in defense.  As it is now, if you up against the horde, kill 5 of them and land, you've had a nice sortie, but if they still take the base, you really did nothing for your side.  Instead, killing the enemy, ANY enemy units, actually helps your side and maybe helps you HOLD the base simply by reducing downtime for your side.

4) "Bomb-and-bail" becomes a less attractive solution for those who do it to inflict as much damage as they can in the least amount of time.  Bail your bombers, and you've just helped BOTH enemy sides reduce the damage you just did (per bomber lost!).

5) Lastly, attrition had a significant impact on the war (and air war particularly) in WWII, whereas in Aces High, losing units means nothing in the grand scale of things.  If anything, with this mechanic alone, you are adding an element of realism by attrition having an impact on the game without actually limiting anyone's game-play.

The cool thing about this game mechanic, is only the "war winners" would really care about affecting enemy production/down-time and most of the issues above are a by-product of the "war winner" crowd.  Even better, this mechanic doesn't "take away" anything from anyone or "prevent" anyone from doing anything they do now.  It's really a clever game mechanic to encourage fighting and surviving contact with the enemy over some of the "gamey" approaches mentioned above.

It is really an intriguing idea for the game, IMO and should be seriously looked at by HTC.

<S>
Ryno

[Lusche]

1) Furballing would now contribute to your side's war effort, as killing enemy planes helps as long as you are destroying more enemy assets than you are losing.No more complaints from the war winners that "furballing is pointless".

One problem I see that players deliberately flying 'crappy' planes and putting themselves to a disadvantage would now hurt their sides' war game. If you would up your P-40C against the horde just to see how long you can last, the 'war' players actually would have a point with their claim "you are wasting our resources". Everybody would now be a part of the war, and I see players being much more attacked for doing the wrong thing (= losing) or for plainly "sucking".



As for now, if you are just going to furball senselessly you are hardly going to hurt your side - apart from tying up other enemy forces, it's as if you weren't there.

[TW9]

I do applaud you for looking outside the box.  I do however see a few snags.  You are presuming that everyone has a "country".  My squad rotates each month, some folks rotate once or twice a day for one single reason... to find a fight....  

I don't see how this would be an issue since there would be multiple resets within a month.

[Wiley]

Getting back to the original topic, or a portion thereof, I'd love to see a game mechanic where killing the enemy (or losing assets) affected the "big picture" of winning the war.

I like the idea of making it a "reward" for the opposing side/sides though, as opposed to a "penalty" to your own, but in simple terms, if you lose an aircraft/vehicle you hurt your own side by helping the enemy.  This could be as simple as reducing the downtime on all enemy objects a little for the "rewarded" side(s).  What this could represent, if you wanted to justify it in realistic terms, is the relative production impact of loss of war materiel.  In other words, when you lose units, the enemy's downtime decreases, because their relative production (or "excess production capacity" if you want to call it that) went up.

For example, Bishop Player loses a set of Lancasters while bombing a town.  All 3 Lancs are lost, so the opposing sides (Rook and Knight) BOTH get a relative "production boost".  Dowtimes for all objects on their side goes down by "x" number of seconds.  The number of seconds applied to enemy downtime could be relative to a number of things: like 1) arena population (less impact when more players are fighting/dying) 2) asset value, i.e. losing a Tiger tank rewards the enemy more than losing a Panzer, losing a B17 helps the enemy more than losing a Brewster, etc.

I think this mechanic alone potentially addresses several gripes about the game, as follow:

1) Furballing would now contribute to your side's war effort, as killing enemy planes helps as long as you are destroying more enemy assets than you are losing.No more complaints from the war winners that "furballing is pointless".

2) Bomb-augering/kamikaze style play is less helpful to your side as losing a plane just reduces the effectiveness of your attack.  Diving a low ENY plane into a target helps the enemy.

3) Defending against the horde can actually be effective.  Instead of just resupping or M3/goon hunting, "making the enemy pay" by attritting ANY of their assets actually helps in defense.  As it is now, if you up against the horde, kill 5 of them and land, you've had a nice sortie, but if they still take the base, you really did nothing for your side.  Instead, killing the enemy, ANY enemy units, actually helps your side and maybe helps you HOLD the base simply by reducing downtime for your side.

4) "Bomb-and-bail" becomes a less attractive solution for those who do it to inflict as much damage as they can in the least amount of time.  Bail your bombers, and you've just helped BOTH enemy sides reduce the damage you just did (per bomber lost!).

The cool thing about this game mechanic, is only the "war winners" would really care about affecting enemy production/down-time and most of the issues above are a by-product of the "war winner" crowd.  Even better, this mechanic doesn't "take away" anything from anyone or "prevent" anyone from doing anything they do now.  It's really a clever game mechanic to encourage fighting and surviving contact with the enemy over some of the "gamey" approaches mentioned above.

It is really an intriguing idea for the game, IMO and should be seriously looked at by HTC.

<S>
Ryno

Good points, along the lines of what I was thinking.  Hadn't even considered it deterring jabocide.  Definitely make your plane worth more than the dar tower and ammo bunkers.

Although to be honest it wouldn't deter people from doing it.  Jabocide/bomb and bailers aren't thinking strategic, they're thinking porking the field is all that matters.  I really, really want to like the idea of punishing jabocides and bomb and bailers for doing it (pet peeve), but it wouldn't affect them personally only their side as a whole.

Lusche- That's an excellent point too.  Although if it were tied to the ENY values similar to the perk bonus, me upping my 35 ENY bird and getting a couple 10 or less ENY kills could handily negate losing it to a pony.

Wiley.

[Kingpin]

If you would up your P-40C against the horde just to see how long you can last, the 'war' players actually would have a point with their claim "you are wasting our resources".

Not if you killed at least one enemy plane with your P-40C before you went down.  If anything, flying higher ENY birds would potentially help your side more than hurt it. The guys who furball in La-7's or Ponies (for example) would potentially be hurting their side (or helping the enemy, as the case may be) more than the guy in the P40.  

This of course raises the issue of people gaming it by bailing low ENY planes on the runway.  There could be a timer on it, for this case, so losing a plane within 30 seconds of rolling doesn't count -- which also conveniently covers getting vulched repeatedly as well, so vulch-fests don't have a "war winning" effect.

Everybody would now be a part of the war, and I see players being much more attacked for doing the wrong thing (= losing) or for plainly "sucking".

I felt the impact of one individual losing a single plane would be relatively minor.  I'm looking at things on a larger scale in terms of hording, mass kamikaze attacks and other larger numbers of kills in a group.

That said, perhaps rank could be tied into it.  A player with a very high (read: bad) Fighter Rank who loses a fighter could have less effect on the downtime seconds number than a well-ranked player.  This lessens the "noob effect" you are suggesting and means the "experten" who lose planes have a bigger strategic impact (like losing veteran pilots would).  

Another positive way to look at it though, is this becomes a larger incentive for players to help new players on your side instead of just ignoring or writing them off as noobs.

<S>
Ryno