Manned guns and field supplies

[wil3ur]

...and I'll add that there's many instances where I'm the only plane in the air, but there's 2 guys manning 88's and a couple other guys sitting there in other manned guns or wirbles on concrete doing absolutely nothing.

In these instances, I'll also put on an airshow for the guys in the guns and start barnstorming the hangars.  It actually takes more skill than a dogfight, and a lot more luck to dive through a full up base, go through a hangar at under 30 feet and hopefully not hit your prop, get radiator, oiled or fueled by ack than it does to actually try and fight someone in the skies...  my only complaint in those instances is I give up a "kill" to a vagpuppet in a manned gun than an ackhugger, but in either case I at least died on my own terms.

[Randy1]

Every person on vox that complains about ack that I have heard, are looking for easy kills.   

The op must not participate in base takes or base defense. 

Base taking has to have team work in prime time to be successful.  You have to shutdown the base to be taken and cut off supply lines.  It is huge fun when your country is working as a team.

Best I can tell, the bish have the best team work, the rooks second.  The knits, although they work together on occasions, they seem to be more obsessed as a whole with their kill to death ratio.

[puller]

   

The op must not participate in base takes or base defense. 

This....

 

 

[JunkyII]

This....

 

 

Lazer does more for the Knights as far as base taking than any other person who Flys knights...Lazer is always porking something.....


Randy1, 2cmex is a bish....he ups Tempests in fighter town when there is 50 people online....and we are the ones who worry about K/D???

Lazer, I think you and I see eye to eye on this, these days more people would rather up an 88 than a plane in defense it seems...or run GV supps to it....and yes that is a game breaking thing IMO, I don't log a quarter of the hours I used to because "wussies" won't come up and fight. It's not a matter of score or getting the name in lights...been there done that...it's abouts an actual fight.

Kingpin, the best fights happen when 2 pilots who are looking for a good fight run into eachother....doesn't matter the skill level or where they are in relation to the field.

If all man guns and resupply were removed from the game tomorrow, life in game would go on....you keep making it hard for fighters to find a fight....yep well continue downward trend in MA numbers. FACT.

I like when man guns get proxies from the auto guns killing me....shows just how important those gunners are.

[Chilli]

Let's not forget that before some changes were input, there were numerous daily discussions  about how the hordes were ruining the game.  Prior to the changes, you may have had the choice between  rolling head first into overwhelming numbers disadvantaged, or searching  for rare instances of interaction away from the big dar bar or even spearhead your own base capture attempt.

The problem with those  "good ole days" is they were never as good as some seem to remember.  Particular groups had become successful at what others speculated was "skilless" base captures through either surprise or greater numbers.  Others began to resent that they were chasing a fleeting swarm, taking base after base and disappearing soon afterwards to take another base...... not concerned with "engaging" in aerial combat as much as taking over another country's turf.

The resupply system, flawed as it may be, was an answer to changing actions / mindsets of the collective player.  Just as much as NEW flack bases near country strats, with runways to land the resupply aircraft, with yes, you guessed it, AI flack to protect them, has been introduced in the Beta of the next version.   

[JunkyII]

Let's not forget that before some changes were input, there were numerous daily discussions  about how the hordes were ruining the game.  Prior to the changes, you may have had the choice between  rolling head first into overwhelming numbers disadvantaged, or searching  for rare instances of interaction away from the big dar bar or even spearhead your own base capture attempt.

The problem with those  "good ole days" is they were never as good as some seem to remember.  Particular groups had become successful at what others speculated was "skilless" base captures through either surprise or greater numbers.  Others began to resent that they were chasing a fleeting swarm, taking base after base and disappearing soon afterwards to take another base...... not concerned with "engaging" in aerial combat as much as taking over another country's turf.

The resupply system, flawed as it may be, was an answer to changing actions / mindsets of the collective player.  Just as much as NEW flack bases near country strats, with runways to land the resupply aircraft, with yes, you guessed it, AI flack to protect them, has been introduced in the Beta of the next version.

I'm fine with more AI flak and less human controlled flak....I want to see more people in tanks, bombers and fighters. separate issue but I think the answer to the vanishing horde is setting a certain amount of ordnance that can be in the air at any time from a particular field.

[Lazerr]

This....

 

 

I do my fair share of base taking.  I observe these lame game features while participating and even leading inbase taking efforts..  go figure.. 

I guess i am looking for a fight for a base,  not killing manned guns and swarms of m3's, occupied with players who never attempted to defend in the air battle prior to hiding in their holes.

The lack of fighting,  and increase of hiding  is definately causing folks to log,  or quit all together.  Who wants to log into that?

Add this to huge maps spread out with wayyy to many bases.

Consider this when you log in and see not even 300 folks online,  when their used to be 700-800.

[Masherbrum]

Lazer has always been positive abou what this game should be about.   If you see a thread by Lazer?   It should raise an eyebrow.

[JunkyII]

One issue I'm seeing in this thread is everyone has the "it's good the way it is" mentality....it's obviously not seeing that arena numbers are about half of what they were 4-5 years ago.

[Wiley]

One issue I'm seeing in this thread is everyone has the "it's good the way it is" mentality....it's obviously not seeing that arena numbers are about half of what they were 4-5 years ago.

I think it's a bit much to put that all on resupply and field guns.  Not saying it's not a contributing factor, but c'mon.

Wiley.

[Chilli]

Junky,

The game that I remember being the most pure excitement and fun, had the furball lake.  There was no flying 15 minutes to a fight, just to find out you arrived too late or even worse, get taken out in first few moments of arrival (haven't fired a single round).........  What to do...  guess I will take an extra 7 minutes to get to higher altitude this time.... so now it's a 22 minute flight to a fight.

Making strats an important tool in game strategy, never brought that excitement back, but it did give a wondering soul (missing the furball action) something to do offensively and defensively while  searching the clipboard map for something resembling activity worth investigating. 

Now, HiTech was ahead of us with his wisdom of gaming mechanics, and knew that the action of influencing softer base defense through strategic strikes, needed a balancing feature through resupply.  So, most simply put, one without the other would lead to another whole set of problems and I dare say, more of a drop in population.

Also, from the standpoint of a friend who actually, sat in the seat of one of those 88 guns, I sincerely hope that feature would not be taken away.  An excellent compromise would be to make deaths and kills count under GV score, and even charge perks for 88s.   

All in all, I feel like you and others, yearning for the peak numbers of yesteryear.  That however, may be a thing of the past due to the changes in the entertainment market and available time. 

[JunkyII]

I think it's a bit much to put that all on resupply and field guns.  Not saying it's not a contributing factor, but c'mon.

Wiley.

I agree it's not for sure...but you don't see as many of the furballers still around compared to base takers. Just look at the active squad lists.

[JunkyII]

Junky,

The game that I remember being the most pure excitement and fun, had the furball lake.  There was no flying 15 minutes to a fight, just to find out you arrived too late or even worse, get taken out in first few moments of arrival (haven't fired a single round).........  What to do...  guess I will take an extra 7 minutes to get to higher altitude this time.... so now it's a 22 minute flight to a fight.

Making strats an important tool in game strategy, never brought that excitement back, but it did give a wondering soul (missing the furball action) something to do offensively and defensively while  searching the clipboard map for something resembling activity worth investigating. 

Now, HiTech was ahead of us with his wisdom of gaming mechanics, and knew that the action of influencing softer base defense through strategic strikes, needed a balancing feature through resupply.  So, most simply put, one without the other would lead to another whole set of problems and I dare say, more of a drop in population.

Also, from the standpoint of a friend who actually, sat in the seat of one of those 88 guns, I sincerely hope that feature would not be taken away.  An excellent compromise would be to make deaths and kills count under GV score, and even charge perks for 88s.   

All in all, I feel like you and others, yearning for the peak numbers of yesteryear.  That however, may be a thing of the past due to the changes in the entertainment market and available time.

I think the new strat system is great, the ability to resupply so quickly with M3s is the only problem I see with it honestly.

[Wiley]

I agree it's not for sure...but you don't see as many of the furballers still around compared to base takers. Just look at the active squad lists.

If you're going to blame those two, you may as well blame anything that is not fighter related.

My personal feeling is the popularity of GVing and its effectiveness in base taking has done far more harm to the number of planes in the air than resupply.

How many times do you see an aircraft-based base take fail, and suddenly the ground starts crawling with GVs instead?  I know I see it on a fairly regular basis.  90% of the time for me, once an enemy has gotten into a tank he may as well have logged, because he ceases to exist to me.

For whatever reasons the numbers have dropped, and it seems to me especially at slow times people are more inclined to stay in GVs instead of aircraft.  If the ratios stay the same, all it would take is a numbers bump to hit critical mass so enough people get in planes that there'd at least be something to do in the air at all times.  Seems to me it would only take about 50 more people in non-prime time to make that happen, but I'm not sure.

Wiley.

[Copprhed]

If you believe that Aces High is or should be only a furballing game, you're stuck in a rut. It hasn't been that for a long time. Maybe it's those that believe the game should only be what they, in their perfect, all knowledgeable opinion, think it should be that's causing people to leave. AH is a niche game at best, though it's an awesome one, and limiting the factors like resupply, GVing and manned guns would only cause more people to leave. IMHO it's those that only want to dogfight that are the biggest problem in the game, and they are definitely the most vocal complainers. If you want to limit what you do, fine, but DON'T expect others to cowtow to your desires, and then complain that THEY are the problem.