The game play lately sucks!

[Delirium]

I hardly fly in the MA, over 15 years in this game. The Main Arena stopped doing it for me in 2004 or so, I want historical fights and more realistic settings with squad mates who put mission over squad accolades.

The Main Arena is the life's blood of events. Without it, events and Aces High itself will eventually die. Even if events ran for 3 hours a day, every day it would still only amount to 12.5% of the total Aces High time. Hard to sell a game that runs less than 13% of the time in today's gaming world.

I agree with you on the historical fights and mission orientated scenarios. In addition, I fully support the concept of mission over squadron and over personal glory, but even that is disappearing in events. The last FSO I attended I was told on range that a certain squad was there to get kills and I should stay out of their way. That was the last time I flew in FSO and I'm not sure I want to return. It is disappointing because the 412th are a good group of guys, but I'm simply not enjoying it.

[Nefarious]

That's a shame Del, we sure do miss ya.

I can't argue with anything you, Guppy or Lusche says.

[SPKmes]

Ill restate to upp with your wingman/men and drop just a couple of bombs on a base and you will have a fight

This does work in some cases.. but what you end up with is a few guys not allowing an upping con to get any E... they get bored with the lack of competitive offering and go elsewhere...usually the tower to wait for a real fight...even a base take can be better than this....
 I do this often as I am a self proposed defender of bases for the side I am on... but when I can't even get to  1500ft each time I flag it as I am not going to be somebodies patsy... the few(not the squad) doing this think it is great but the single guy just puts it up as lame play.... Hmmm  well i should actually stipulate here that these are my thoughts and feelings...I will up a few times and put up the best fight I can but if it becomes a futile operation I will stop... many times I have done this exact thing and then a couple of others will up with me and the guys "looking for a fight" leave...I guess the odds just get too real for them... Don't get me wrong...not saying this is what you do...but I have done this for a long time now and it is the majority... But i do it because there are those times that a real awesome fight happens... love multicon V me fights when I am offered a little grace...I die a lot but there can be some great stuff happen...
I also do it as it can be the only action I see at my general login time

[icepac]

Not seeing it.

The HQ crutch is not necessary for fun gameplay.

Just ask on channel what is where and you get an answer.

[Guppy35]

The HQ crutch is not necessary for fun gameplay.

Just ask on channel what is where and you get an answer.

It's more than just the HQ being down.  The constant killing of HQ is just one of the symptoms of how the game play has changed.   

[The Fugitive]

The HQ crutch is not necessary for fun gameplay.

Just ask on channel what is where and you get an answer.

(Image removed from quote.)

It's a symptom of the rot in the game.

If HQ was being taken out as a tactic when it comes back up wouldn't you see a bunch of attacks going all along the front of the team that took out HQ? They know it went down. With no dar there is no need to climb to alt, or hide NOE. It is the perfect time to grab as many bases as you can.

But we don't see that, what we see is some A holes having their fun ticking off all the other players who are trying to play a game. We seem to lose more and more ticked off players every week and lucky us we get to keep the A holes. 

[RotBaron]

It's a symptom of the rot in the game.

I can't be to blame  ; I've hardly had time to follow the stock market (my favorite past time) with nursing school (finals in 3 weeks); let alone play games.

My professors keep playing reindeer games; I have a rot nose though.

[nooby52]

Anyone who references SpongeBob Squarepants in an argument shouldn't be allowed to play this game.

[Butcher]

Seems everyone has a different view on how the game play is going or play styles. I always viewed the Main Arena as nothing more then practice for scenarios, fso's and snapshots. Since 2002 I've always seen people days before an FSO event flying their "event ride" to practice, as vOid once pointed out "why not familiar yourself with the ride you are going to be flying in the events?". I used the Main arena to challenge myself also, flying Ki-84s and C.205s in a late war arena was much more challenging then it seems. I believe it made me a better pilot, as there was no aircraft I couldn't fly without regard in any situation or scenario.

The Duel Arena was nothing more then challenge myself to learn to fight more efficiently, when my gunnery improved - I was able to show you could down 8 planes in a C.202 on a random sortie. Could I pull it off always? course not, but I gave myself expectations that in any scenario I would be confident enough I could handle any mission.

FSO, Snapshots and Scenarios was just where I put it all on the line. I left the game almost 3 years ago today because of personal reasons - it wasn't because the "main arena" was changing, it has always changed since 2002 - I pretty much learned the game play was turning "sour" when the Muppets had to put up a dogfight mission in the Main arena because frankly everything at this point was to "NOE undefended bases". There was no fighting spirit left in the game it seemed, of course there are people like Del and Latrobe who I flew with that always gave you a good time, even if it was once a week it made it worth it. Sorry I cannot comment on the gameplay now, I've been lurking only hoping to have an interest in coming back, but for three years now my thrustmasters warthogs have sat untouched. I guess I can say I lost all "interest", only because when I could fly - there were not very many fights going on, of course the loss in players attributed to that.

I think in my best opinion its because players like me; have chosen to move on - as much as I wanted to stick around (I didn't pay $500 for thrustmasters for nothing), I just lost all interest and hope.

[DmonSlyr]

I finally got to play between 2-6pm est time yesterday afternoon and I have to say it was impossible not to find a fight. I was fighting on the bish and we were getting swarmed by both sides for hours. I was having fun fighting both fronts when one side got a lil smaller. I had plenty of action and plenty of enemies to shoot down. Was a lot of fun and never a dull moment. Maybe it was because I was on the Bish side, but we definitely had a lot of action!

If you only have an hour or a short time to play, switch to the team that is getting jumped. Sometimes you can find all sorts of awesome action or huge fights with tons of red guys to shoot.

Just gotta find the fights and don't take the whole chess piece loyalty too seriously. There are many fights to be had! 

[Butcher]

I finally got to play between 2-6pm est time yesterday afternoon and I have to say it was impossible not to find a fight.

I was lucky if I found a fight between 2-4pm EST, usually I would end up switching countries to find the fight, but when it died down then it was time to log since the whole time switch. Once a week I would get lucky to walk into a furball when I logged in, but it was starting to get more rare the more I stayed around, and this was years ago.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Make the HQ an object that must be scouted in order to know the location???

Oh, and harden the kg requirements...

That wouldn't be historically accurate. We all know that Bletchley park and the aerial command bunker was clearly marked to Hitlers map via postal address from Churchills get-well card. 

[DmonSlyr]

I was lucky if I found a fight between 2-4pm EST, usually I would end up switching countries to find the fight, but when it died down then it was time to log since the whole time switch. Once a week I would get lucky to walk into a furball when I logged in, but it was starting to get more rare the more I stayed around, and this was years ago.

Granted it was Sunday. However, there was also a SEA event going on as well that took about 60 -100 people. So really in truely the fights are there. On a weekday I don't think the #s would be as high, but there are still fights. I usually log in after work between 5-6 before my GF nags me to log off, and most of the time I switch to the team that is getting owned and go battle the hoard. I mean it is a lot of fun and I normally find more than I can chew. Sometimes it is slow, and thats when I wish we had more people playing. All it takes is 350 people in the MA to have a heck of a time.
Alls I'm saying is that there really isn't that much of a lack of fights. It just takes a little bit of understanding and experience to make the best out of it and go fight against the team that is mass hoarding.

[Creton]

I left quiet some time ago, mainly because of personal reasons,work, life,love and the pursuit of happiness.

I never found a problem finding a fight, we would intentionally up from capped bases or near a capped base, if HQ was getting hit, we would just up 163 and have a hoot. Reading all this seems like that there's a rift between the older," glory and Honor" crew and the current day gamers. To be honest I really never cared if HQ was down or not, if it was down I just upped bases near where a fight was and headed that way. The best times are when all three sides are dog fighting and you save an opposing team pilet and then you know he's thinking he's safe and then you get him too!!

Everyone,when they first start is excited and thrilled with the learning curve and then as time progresses and skills improve, then at some point boredom sets in because as BB King says "THE THRILL IS GONE"
It's how you make the transition that determines how you come to interpret the game as a whole.


Aces High has always been what you make it, good or bad.
 
HAIL!!
Das Ficker/Creton

[Lusche]

I never found a problem finding a fight, we would intentionally up from capped bases or near a capped base, if HQ was getting hit, we would just up 163 and have a hoot.

How do you have a hoot in the 163 when the HQ raider went NOE to his target and bails after drop?

How do you find 'the fight' when you are not playing during US times, when the only targets on your front are single high/med alt raiders here and there, which are effectively hidden with no darbar? When there are no battles with "capped fields"?