Rethink Strats, City HQ impact on the Game

[Randy1]

In recent times the strats are down just before prime time nearly every night.  With the reduced number of players, bomber bailers, it is hard to get enough strat and city defenders and resupplier's. 

Vbases suffer the worst.  A single plane can take down 5 guns that are going to be down for nearly two hours and the base is easy to snatch.

Beta has changes coming but will they be enough?

[Wiley]

The only way we're going to see if it's enough is to see it in play however HTC is going to implement it.

Wiley.

[Randall172]

wind with increasing intensity as you get higher up and closer to the strat, randomized also.

[The Fugitive]

Biggest problem with the strats is nobody wants to defend them. The reasons are 1, it takes for ever to get high enough to fight buffs, and 2, the buffs bail before you get to then.  Just a big waste of time. Adjustments in down times and damage done per bomb could make it still worth while for those that wish to make the run, and adjustments  to curb the bailers could make it more worth while for those that like to defend.

Finding a happy medium where is fun for the buff guys and not so devastating to the country being hit is the trick.

[bustr]

What, two ack bases with 126 auto AI 88mm won't be enough to defend the HQ in AH3? Have you bothered to install the beta and wander around the HQ and ack bases on CraterMA? Two ack bases per HQ appears to be the standard for the moment. And it looks like the terrain builder has some discretion to salting countries with them. Skuzzy will probably come out with updated guidelines for terrain base placement in AH3 due to that new object.

You guys are likely to beat your keyboards to death the first time the new Iowa class battleship sinks your CV with it's three 16 inch salvo. Then demand battleship cannon control regulations because it's too powerful for mere civilians to nuke each other with. Now the fact that the guns take almost 30 seconds to reload won't temper anyone's demands for cannon control regulations to protect poor innocent CV's from those instruments of death......

Without any input from Hitech about what the final product will be, you gents have decided AH3 is just AH2 with classier silk pajamas.

[Zoney]

The #1 reason for not defending the strats is it hurts your score.  Your kill per hour will be in the toilet.


The bailing buffs issue is being overstated in my opinion.  Yes it happens and it is frustrating when it does.  It is my estimation that it happens less than 1 in 20 times.  It can happen a few time is a row and that makes it very frustrating.  It is possible that the same guy is doing it to you then.  If you are bailing those buffs, I win.  You know it and I know it and that's all that matters.

I frequently "let the last buff live" when attacking formations.  I don't want to take all your fun away and landing that last aircraft is certainly part of the fun.  I do film my sorties and if you bail, I will remember and you will NEVER get a free pass on your last buff.

Recently I have taken to "pinging all 3 on the first pass".  This is because I've found more and more pilots flinging their aircraft all over the sky and losing their AI.  I've also had guys bail after the first pass, as soon as I'm just enough out of range that without pinging each one I wouldn't have even gotten a proxie kill.

There is no reason/excuse for it.  I do believe that if you continue to complain about it, then you are feeding the trolls/griefers that do it for no other reason than to make you mad.

[Lusche]

The #1 reason for not defending the strats is it hurts your score.  Your kill per hour will be in the toilet.

Unless you are explicitly going for fighter #1, you can still have a very good (top 10) fighter rank when you mostly defend the strats against bombers (think of the hit% boost)... that is, as long as you do good against the buffs

What made myself largely abandon the strat defense when flying a fighter was the breakup of the central strats. Traditionally there have always been less defenders than attackers, and most of the time I would be the only defender at all. So I couldn't simply cover them all, when I was here the enemy would strike there... and with a 180 min downtime and relatively small single factories, only 1 bomber needs to get through. Then add the often horrible locations, like directly in front of enemy bases, or other places where you actually can't see any bomber coming early enough... protecting the strats was suddenly getting mostly pointless in terms of gameplay.

I also greatly turned down my attacks on them, which (unknown to most) I was actually doing much more than defending them... 

[popeye]

The #1 reason for not defending the strats is it hurts your score.  Your kill per hour will be in the toilet.

Your fun per hour will be in the toilet.   

[Wiley]

Gotta agree with Kong.  It takes a special kind of mental illness to enjoy defending the strats.

Wiley.

[bustr]

The mega strat had it's positives for action and combat. Then the strat back field shift based on numbers of fields captured had it's positives with enough player numbers in the MA. A change is needed to help bomber drivers achieve something along with those interested getting at them without all of the trouble involved using up your generally very short time to play in your fighter.

In another post of this nature I thought a fusion of the functions might be an answer. Start out on a fresh map with everything scattered in the mid field of each country to attract attackers. As your fields begin to get captured, the strats most in danger by proximity shift towards the HQ and it's two ack bases. This would lessen the impact of taking a base next door to a strat and milking it all night long making NOE or strategic bomber attacks relevant from a distance away. Ultimately on a bad night all of your strat will have shifted together near the HQ. This would probably require a few more of the 63 Flak36 88mm fields to be placed in the back field creating a defense ring for the strats to pull behind. And it may be a way to throw in 163's being activated at a second base once all the strat shift behind the 88 base zone.

This would be a bit more challenging to the bomber drivers but, Hitech could increase the HQ down time and lessen the bomb load a bit to compensate them for their efforts. And I do believe the flak36 at the ack bases can be destroyed if someone wanted to make approaching the HQ safer.

Having an ack zone in the backfield that the strats would pull behind might make infringing on a country's undefended back end more risky for the usual combat avoiders.

[Sabre]

How about enabling Me-163's, no perk cost, at all strat? Has to be easier than making strat targets move, if I understand Bustr's suggestion correctly.

[bustr]

That will be abused to have a "163's are us" MA much of the time. Moving the strats makes the bombing of them a chance for combat that either side can win or loose while the movement offsets the lack of numbers today. As is with the lack of numbers, the bomber is the most powerful arbiter of game flow today with very little risk involved. The HQ bombing and downtime parameters had to be changed as a validation of that.

Free 163's all over the place will make people cancel their subscriptions and drive away players willing to invest the time in bombing. Creating as the worst case scenario for a country that all of their strat has been relocated to the safest territory possible increases the ease of hitting targets for the risk of getting through to them. At the point of the worst case scenario, enabling 163 at a second base in the pull back zone is not a guarantee of a successful defense out come if the bombers come in 30+ which greatly shortens the 163's combat time. 

Shades of WW2.

[Zoney]

Gotta agree with Kong.  It takes a special kind of mental illness to enjoy defending the strats.

Wiley.

I probably should have been institutionalized years ago.

[The Fugitive]

I probably should have been institutionalized years ago.

Agreed!   

[USCH]

Unless you are explicitly going for fighter #1, you can still have a very good (top 10) fighter rank when you mostly defend the strats against bombers (think of the hit% boost)... that is, as long as you do good against the buffs

What made myself largely abandon the strat defense when flying a fighter was the breakup of the central strats. Traditionally there have always been less defenders than attackers, and most of the time I would be the only defender at all. So I couldn't simply cover them all, when I was here the enemy would strike there... and with a 180 min downtime and relatively small single factories, only 1 bomber needs to get through. Then add the often horrible locations, like directly in front of enemy bases, or other places where you actually can't see any bomber coming early enough... protecting the strats was suddenly getting mostly pointless in terms of gameplay.

I also greatly turned down my attacks on them, which (unknown to most) I was actually doing much more than defending them...

i agree,

mabe we should put the strats back to being all together around the city.