Improving the ground war to help the air war

[DREDIOCK]

I think the biggest problem as far as imbalance is concerned is the "all or nothing" base take.  A player / group / country could work for hours trying to take one field.  In the end, either you got it or you tuck your tail and vacate.

Like others have said, if the war had more objectives other than capturing bases, that at least gave missions and sorties lasting effects other than removing bombs or radar from a base for a few minutes, a base attack could show some sort of real progress, even if the base has not been captured.  Capturing hills, villages, railways, bridges would equal more interaction and more fun.  Festers map almost has that feel, with the chain of vbases.  Think if at the end of that chain a major strategical airfield was located, and the vbases had single hangars and multiple entry points from either country (on that front), advances could routinely be made by small forces, but also easily pushed back.

Somewhere along the line, someone has decided that rolling bases is bad for AH.  I put out the challenge that it is GOOD for AH, and even better when a low populated country has an opportunity to score territory (even if at a slower rate).

the problem with objectives no matter what they are is Anything that is objective based promotes the horde. At least as its done now where everyone can up from a single location and for a massive conga line to an objective.

Is why I also support limiting the number of planes that can be up from any one base at any given time. 
Limiting the number of aircraft that can be up from any single base would force the players to spread out. Thus creating more of a change of a fight on a broader front.
 You might still get your hording on one location. But you also increase the chance of discovery. And break down the horde into smaller components which can be dealt with before their objective is reached. It would also force mission planners to use their imaginations.

I mean. C'mon. It doesn't take much of a thought process to say OK Everyone up here in X plane and Y plane brom base ABC and we will all go to Base XYZ en masse.

[Traveler]

I never understood the people that did that. How long was the factory down? For a whole 15 minutes?

I personally think the ones with the problem is the ones that cant survive without their favorite ride for 15 minutes (hey, Im willing to put my ride on the line)

Anyway. Thats why I suggested it be tied to ENY. To make it harder for the horde to destroy without pulling significant numbers from the win the war effort. triple the amount of act surrounding strats. Make hitting them a major accomplishment and not just a milk run

I also still believe in Zones. We had the best overall gameplay when we had the fights over the primary zone bases.
 Have a strat factory for each category in each zone. Then unless all strats are hit at once. Then nobody is ever completely  without their ride. Only from upping their ride in a given zone. Place them toward the back of each zone and the closer you get to a strat target the less distance someone has to travel in "their" ride to get to the fight

These are all great ideas and from a game playing idea I'd enjoy any changes to the game strategy , but it all involves changes to code and I'm not sure that the powers that be are willing to undertake the effort or invest the budget of resources and time to tear into the guts to rework the basic guts of game play that make up the strategy side of the game.   I've always heard that the code changes to date, all collectively to date were supposed to help create basic modeling  game engine changes to help make future game changes easier and more cost effective, AHII and the WWI arena, Now I know they are working on pretty water, grass and trees, So do we have to wait another 5 to 15 years to get basic changes to the game strategy??????

[Chilli]

I still adamantly say, all or nothing objectives, drive most folks away from any coordinated group effort.  The term horde, is nothing new and will be found in most any multiplayer game. 

Bishops had V mega squad that rolled bases, AND provided a great number of opportunities to find an air battle (even if it was in a concentrated area).   

NOE quick strikes were successful rolling bases, and also gave ground units the opportunity to get in some defensive ground to air kills.

Almost any other type of group effort besides the newly favored fleet sneak attack, is fading fast..... along with........ (sigh)