2 sided war arena

[bustr]

Kind of a bait and switch. AH with low numbers is not closing it's doors. The owner is busy coding AH3. I suspect the owner is accepting low subscription numbers as a cost of doing business to get the next version finished. In the end analysis, FA closed it's doors for some business reason, while AH doors are open for some business reason.

Any arguments about FA are as specious as, Bruce Lee could have kicked some martial arts movie hero's arse a year after his grave was filled in. Lee was dead, that new actor wasn't. Aces High is not FA.

The OP has asked for a two sided arena with the MA ride choices in tact. The AvA CM's can implement that as easily as any of you can create and setup a custom arena the same. Late nights with low numbers, your only problem would be herding everyone to the AvA to resume game play. IF!!, the AvA CM were willing to reboot that arena at some point for that purpose every evening.

[Skyyr]

That's surprising. Do you know what caused FA to shut their doors?

Summarized, lack of a sustainable business projection. They had overhead costs and were in need of a game redesign, and they couldn't fund that off of the declining playerbase. The game had lost subscriber numbers, but it wasn't dead - they simply didn't believe it was worth running for long-term profitability.

[Skyyr]

Any arguments about FA are as specious as, Bruce Lee could have kicked some martial arts movie hero's arse a year after his grave was filled in. Lee was dead, that new actor wasn't. Aces High is not FA.

"Specious"? Are you even familiar with what the word actually means? Because, unless it's been tried, there's no way it would meet the definition. And no, a decision not to try it is not the same as having tried it.

A proper use of the word specious: "bustr was specious in his whine that Skyyr was killing him because his tracers were turned off."

Even ignoring that, your argument is still logically flawed, as it breaks into the territory of correlation vs causation. FA might be dead, but that does not mean that the mechanics used in it are invalid or the cause of its death.

The primary issue we have here is side-balancing. The suggestion suggested has a proven, as well as historical, track record. It stands as a legitimate alternative. Whether or not it is considered and implemented is another deal entirely.

[glzsqd]

Summarized, lack of a sustainable business projection. They had overhead costs and were in need of a game redesign, and they couldn't fund that off of the declining playerbase. The game had lost subscriber numbers, but it wasn't dead - they simply didn't believe it was worth running for long-term profitability.

Interesting, always figured it would have resembled what warbirds is today. Was  FA the product of a smaller company relatively speaking?

[Zoney]

They had more numbers when they shut down then AH has currently, so it's still a relevant suggestion. That's entirely why I suggested it, as it maintained balance until the end.

And you know this of course because you were told what the numbers were by those who ran fighter ace and you've been told what the numbers are in Aces High by HiTech.

[Skyyr]

And you know this of course because you were told what the numbers were by those who ran fighter ace and you've been told what the numbers in Aces High by HiTech.

We're not talking active subs, we're talking active players. I'm sure we would all agree that having 10k subs means nothing to gameplay if no one logs on to play.

I know the numbers because I play most days of the week and have for the last 15 months. FA had ~200-300 in Territorial Combat (their version of the MA), with another 100-200 in the Arcade Arenas most every night. To be clear, those were week nights.

AH is lucky to break 300 players on a weekend now across all arenas. Last Friday there were just at 300 players on, including for the FSO, AvA, and EW/MW arenas.

This past weekend was rather dismal, and I couldn't believe how few players there were online. A big contributor to this was the Bishop's HQ being down, and then the lopsided teams where Bishops had lost half of their bases, but neither the Rooks nor the Knights were capturing each other's fields. Bishops literally had less than half of the Knight's numbers for 3+ hours, and the Knights ENY was insanely high (to the point the musketeers were flying LA-5's - that's how bad it was).

All of the suggestions thus far are the same solution with slightly different tweaks. My suggestion was simply to try another approach that has been known to work in similar games.

[Delirium]

Last Friday there were just at 300 players on, including for FSO.

FSO didn't run last Friday.

If you can't track that, how the devil are we supposed to trust your idea of subscribers?

[Skyyr]

FSO didn't run last Friday.

If you can't track that, how the devil are we supposed to trust your idea of subscribers?

You caught me before I edited it. I was simply referring to the numbers in all arenas (I always check the FSO arena numbers and MA numbers on Friday nights), whether or not it ran is not something I actively track, as I rarely participate in it.

[Skyyr]

Interesting, always figured it would have resembled what warbirds is today. Was  FA the product of a smaller company relatively speaking?

Yes, it was very much a small company known as Ketsujin Studios. Not sure what's happened to it since.

[The Fugitive]

In the beginning HTC messed with all types of setups and they decided 3 sides worked best. Say what you will, FA is gone, WWII on line is nothing. Country specific teams won't work. The war wasn't balanced nor did it end in a stalemate. The game should be as balanced as possible at all times. If not people get discouraged and leave creating a poor business model.

ENY is not to push people to switch sides. It does have the added benefit but is not it's purpose. If it was, the 12 hour rule wouldn't be there and we would have more people switching. No switching sides is NOT the intended purpose.

ENY is used to handicap the team with the most players by disallowing them the better equipment. The idea being that 5 guys in good fighters should be able to handle 10 guys in crappy fighters. ENY in a moderately full arena, 200-300 players works fine. The problem as most issues with the game happens when there is a low population. Just a couple people logging on or off can cause wild swings in the ENY penalty. Best fix is to get a lot more Euro time players playing 

Another fix might be what they did when we had the dual MA arenas. During the Eruo prime times there was enough people playing to get good numbers in both late war arenas so they would shut down the dual arenas and open a single LW arena. Later as US prime time was coming on they would close the single LW arena and open the dual LW arenas again. They could do the same but use only small maps for the Euro timed arena condensing the action better for the smaller numbers.   

[bustr]

Yes, it was very much a small company known as Ketsujin Studios. Not sure what's happened to it since.

http://vd.ketsujin.com/

Not much there anymore.

[BuckShot]

Fighter Ace did so well with this setup that nobody plays there now.   

It was never even. During US primetime, USA always had the most players, Japan always had the least.

[glzsqd]

Does anyone know what Fighter Aces plane roster was?

[Skyyr]

It was never even. During US primetime, USA always had the most players, Japan always had the least.

Numbers might have been higher on one team, yet you rarely EVER saw one country conquering another country because of raw numbers. Yet again, testament to how the gameplay worked. The only time numbers "mattered" was when the numbers were due to a squad having a squad night with the goal of conquering a map (NRF/BAT/ALL41 did this frequently). And even then, it wasn't the numbers, it was the fact the players were playing specifically to a coordinated end.

By the way, US was always by far the largest due to the noobs always went US because they were patriotic. Despite 2-3x the odds, the US was one of the easier teams to fight in general. Numbers made little difference. But, if you wanted to switch sides regardless, you could do it easily.

Japan (JP) numbers outnumbered the other countries 2:1 and 3:1 over Japanese primetime hours (FA had a huge Japanese playerbase), yet you rarely ever saw JP dominating the map either. Raw numbers rarely ever correlated to map wins. The way the planesets were split gave every country inherent strengths and weaknesses, and make the gameplay more tactical in general. What won maps was teamwork, not numbers.

The distinction that FA had in the team aspect was that it required pilots who knew how to fly their planes effectively. There was no upping an LA-7 because you just got shot down by one. It resulted in a much higher skill-level of opponent.

[Zoney]

It resulted in a much higher skill-level of opponent.

Took a bit for you to get to the point you wanted to make.  Everyone is fooled by you sir, congratulations.