Improving the ground war to help the air war

[DREDIOCK]

I still believe that the ground war did much to kill the action we had in the air.

Or maybe people got burned out by the air war. Or found it getting stale, and rather then quit the game entirely. They just did something else.

There is no saying how many stayed because for the ground option. Probably many more then left because of it.

People like having options. I love a good furball, or a base take/defence,or occasionally GVing. But if all I had were any one of those options. This game would have gotten old and boring long ago.

[Lab Rat 3947]

Usually what happens is whenever a large ground war gets going. aircraft show up to try and bomb them. then other guys show up in fighters to kill the bombers. then yet more fighters show up to kill the fighters that are trying to kill the bombers who are trying to bomb the GVs..
An improvement to the ground game could significantly help the air war.

I love free-for-alls like this   The perfect time to up a P-38L heavy; targets everywhere, on the ground & in the air  
I kill a few & die alot but its fun.
I don't GV only fly  


LtngRydr

[Black Jack]

Because the newer generation want more gratification quicker, I believe that the "hardcore" guys who died thousands of times to learn how to be the best they could fighting in an aircraft will get lower and lower with years going by. Doing something to improve the basic amount of players in the game overall should be what we want. This way, maybe they will want to start to fly more. Probably at first they will be in bombers, but eventually will switch to jabo's then full fighters. Then doing what AH is designed for. Fighting in the air, sea or land.     If we don't try to get "some" people in and the last "Hardcore" fighters keep leaving. No one will have something to fight in AH. Started to play in tour 81. Much has change in the years. But Lusche's numbers don't lie.

[LLv34_Dictonius]

To me playing AH is not only about fighting the fight in a warbirds  even though  i consider myself more like fighter jockey than anything else. Fighting just for the fightings sake ain't enough for me. I like the idea that there is this sense of purpose in what i do, supporting other finns / rooks to capture a field or escorting our buffs etc. Seeing GV'ers doing their part on the ground is part of the immersion. Infantry would indeed add to this feeling of immersion and i would not complain if more GV's will be offered instead of new planes. Heck i can't even fly half of them as one should after 14 years of doing these online sims.

This is also the reason i like scenarios. It gives you this sense that you are a tiny spec, a single wheel in a big big macine. You can feel and you can see there is war going on around you. Otherwise i might as well play warthunder or some il2 series game. AH got it right. And i support the idea of making new machines to the grinder wether to fly, drive or crawl...

[The Fugitive]

Usually what happens is whenever a large ground war gets going. aircraft show up to try and bomb them. then other guys show up in fighters to kill the bombers. then yet more fighters show up to kill the fighters that are trying to kill the bombers who are trying to bomb the GVs..
An improvement to the ground game could significantly help the air war.

I occasionally enjoy GVing (when it isnt a spawn camp) as a break from flying. It can be quite fun when its not whackamole or fighting over nothing.

I see improvements to the ground game as having more potential benefits then drawbacks as it may attract new players. And certainly some of those players will want to at least try flying

I don't see this happen very often, and when it starts to build all you get are the cries from the GV guys about all the "lame bomb****ing".

I don't have a problem with improving the ground game, but neglecting the air game while doing it is foolish and counter productive. Sure you bring in more ground guys but lose more air guys, so whats the point?

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner (at least for 1/3rd of the problem). The other 2/3rds being the poo-throwing monkeys on the bbs. If you really want to see AHIII around for a long time and you don't have anything nice to say, say it offline.

ahhh so we are suppose to talk about the game on the games message board only if we have positive things to say, riiiiight 

If HTC took it as complaining they could easily handle it by editing posts, deleting posts, and even putting posters PNG. However I think they look at it as constructive criticism. I'm sure they have built ideas around some of the things players criticize. I remember when players criticized that taking ack out at a field was too easy and so players couldn't up to defend, HTC added more ack.

If people keep bring up the same criticisms maybe there is something that needs to be looked at. If dar is always down and players are login to come here and criticize that issue every week maybe they should look at it and tweak if they find that is is down an inordinate amount of time.   

[LLv34_Dictonius]

Well actually... it can happen that GV drivers get stuck onto some field we try to capture. I remember in recent history an enemy V-base we closed with our bombers and we were flamed for it. Flying our buffs we couldn't believe that fellow rooks were giving us hell for trying to help in capuring a field they seemed to be working on. And when one of us took m3 in, he was shouted with pretty rude names as if we should not capture this bridgehead vital for rooks to push forwards to another enemy isle.

We did make the capture and the flaming went on. We were ruining their sport or something. As if the goal was not to push forward and try to capture fields! Luckily I don't see this kind of activity often but boy did we laugh. But one begins to wonder. There are so many ways to play this game, so many goals to achieve, so many different factions within the same countries that one easily steps on somebody elses toes. Multifaceted for sure.

In the end the guys in GV's made a notice that they let the enemy capture back this field without resistance. The finns decided that it won't happen.

/edit. And you wonder why rooks lose... hell, we have to fight oneanother

[SirNuke]

Well actually... it can happen that GV drivers get stuck onto some field we try to capture. I remember in recent history an enemy V-base we closed with our bombers and we were flamed for it. Flying our buffs we couldn't believe that fellow rooks were giving us hell for trying to help in capuring a field they seemed to be working on. And when one of us took m3 in, he was shouted with pretty rude names as if we should not capture this bridgehead vital for rooks to push forwards to another enemy isle.

We did make the capture and the flaming went on. We were ruining their sport or something. As if the goal was not to push forward and try to capture fields! Luckily I don't see this kind of activity often but boy did we laugh. But one begins to wonder. There are so many ways to play this game, so many goals to achieve, so many different factions within the same countries that one easily steps on somebody elses toes. Multifaceted for sure.

In the end the guys in GV's made a notice that they let the enemy capture back this field without resistance. The finns decided that it won't happen.

/edit. And you wonder why rooks lose... hell, we have to fight oneanother

That's a testament of how the war/capture system is not interesting in it's current state. Why bother capture a field when you currently have a fight, and that there is 150 fields to capture after that one? I understand why you guys got yelled at, I never liked when people kill the FH in an otherwise good fight.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It helps the fighter guys if the game is still online.  BTW how can more than 1 "fighter" not have anyone to fight and how do more ground targets change that?

Inclusion of the gvs has brought some negative effects even to fighters though. Running for field ack turned into running for friendly wirble and taking off a field became dangerous with gvs camping close to landing/TO paths etc.

It would be cool if AH had also troops WW2OL style, I would love to strafe some fps players on the fields (of war, not airfields)

[Tilt]

I would be interested in stats re kills for

GV v GV

GV v AC

AC v AC

Interestingly the OP referred to Ground war and Air war. Not ACM duelling  & GV jousting.

I for one would like the whole ground war modelled to provide a foil for the  Air Combat gaming model.

I would like the ground war moved away from airfields but still be the key to the land grab aquisition re town capture. It always seemed wrong to me that airfields are some how linked to towns but GV fields are not..... I see how it's evolved this way from the basic model used by AW in the early 90's but cannot help but observe that the balance is not right or even credible.

The ground war should IMO be the primary land grab gameplay  whereby towns are captured to create logistic routes toward key strat elements. This is supported ( in defence and attack ) by air elements which have to fight for dominance over ther ground war in order to influence it appropriately.

Disabling ( even capturing) airfields should be very difficult in this scenario except when they are denied logistics due to the land grab.....( in which case they would simple shut down and be available for "acquisition" by capture or just acquired CV like by the side that now has the logistic supply{like capturing a port})

In this scenario aircraft are not denied access to game play through porking. The reduced necessity to provide a heavy cap over an extremely adjacent field permits defending AC access to combat beyond the end of the runway.

The land war is mobile and denied direct access ( spawns) to airfields.

Strats ( or just key cities) would be capturable (by land based forces with logistical supply) and the acquisition of a % of these would force the surrender of the side losing them. There would be a significant group of uncapturable fields ( gv & ac) behind the strat facilities.

[Lusche]

I would be interested in stats re kills for

GV v GV

GV v AC

AC v AC

This year so far (jan-nov)

air to air 1.478.863             47%      
air to ground 247.427            8%
ground to ground 991.105  32%
ground to air 410.388         13%


ground to air kills include kills by manned guns, gv vs planes only would be more on par.

[Tilt]

This year so far (jan-nov)

air to air 1.478.863             47%      
air to ground 247.427            8%
ground to ground 991.105  32%
ground to air 410.388         13%


ground to air kills include kills by manned guns, gv vs planes only would be more on par.

I suppose that a small % of ground to ground would also be from manned guns.

It's a pity that the air to ground kills on manned guns is not counted. It would be a matter of debate whether the data would be relevant in other areas of discussion (score etc) ..... albeit that it would ( in this discussion) represent game play time by players doing what they wish to do even if it's dieing ( eventually) in a manned gun.

What we see though is that the "ground war" (32%) and the "air war" (47%) are indeed predominantly separate. So going back to the OP's wish to enhance one in a way that improves the other .....must be preceded by gameplay mechanisms that actually promote the "ground v air war".

[Lusche]

What we see though is that the "ground war" (32%) and the "air war" (47%) are indeed predominantly separate.

Though some caution should be used when doing these comparisons based on kills, as both forms of combat have substantially different kills/hours. On average, vehicle combat K/Ts are significantly higher than air to air combat ones.

Second, this also doesn't means there is that much of separation between them. Tanks are rolling to a base. Tank hunters take off, but are engaged by enemy air cover which in turn provokes more fighter sorties. An air battle ensues over the target, and as long as this air battle is relatively balanced, few tanks are being killed from the air, as Il-2's, A-20s and such are a premium target. More tanks are being killed by other tanks defending the town.
That would be a combined arms battle, with still relatively few A2H kills and relatively many G2G kills.

If much more tanks would be killed by bombs, few players would actually bother to use them, as this is a very lopsided and frustrating kind of 'combat' for a GV driver.

[Tilt]

I think you're correct in as much that an air superiority dominance ( or at least a stalemate) would be the essential requirement to ( in this scenario) a successfull ground mission unless an effective ground to air defence is employed.

My opinion regarding the tank driver not wanting to play through fear of being bombed.......

My first impression is a sort of "doh!"  Re tanking timidity...... However re game play balance I would again point to the present situation whereby attacking towns is presently linked to the close proximity of airfields..... It's really toooo easy to up a bomber to travel a couple of miles to bomb the incoming tanks..... This drives the motivation to pork ord and so on and so on...etc etc.

Link towns to GV fields as per above and now the ordinance has to be flown some 10-15 miles to be used against incoming GV's.... Then ( I would argue)  we see GV 's being bombed much more in the quantity found when ( presently) trying to capture a GV field from an adjacent GV field.

[Lab Rat 3947]

I never liked when people kill the FH in an otherwise good fight.

I agree.

However, like I previously stated, I also really enjoy those spur-of-the-moment free-for-alls. When for some turn of events, everyone just converges at a base and has at it. The only thing that makes it perfect is when it is at a port and both CVs are there too. 

[Traveler]

I don't have a problem with improving the ground game, but neglecting the air game while doing it is foolish and counter productive. Sure you bring in more ground guys but lose more air guys, so whats the point?
 

What is it about the "air game" that you feel is neglected?  I don't think HTC really cares if the guy paying for a subscription is flying an aircraft, or driving a tank.   I think a target is a target is a target.   And I have seen fights prolonged and drawing in many more targets for both sides where there is an area with a mix of GV's and Aircraft.