Bombing Strats have become a waste of time...

[Gman]

How sad for you.

...Haha....Ahaha.



At last.  Banana dances to 2Legit2Quit.   

[bustr]

The OP should ask the community about the perceived attitude over the last 15 years of Hitech to giving any single player, or very small group, absolute control over the majority's fun, by a single action against a target as a country wide choke hold. The OP wants his single finger salute to shut down the fun of a whole country and edify himself when he sees his name in lights. While probably enjoying the whines of outrage on 200 during his trip back to land.

This is not what the customers are paying Hitech for. Nor is how this open arena system been designed. This is not a two country war of domination game. Depending on the terrain, it's up to 200 individual wars staged at 200 individual bases in an open world environment. Winning the war is only one of many possible results available to the players depending on what they like doing for a few hours. But, not crippling the environment of a single country for a sustained time period without having to fight that countries players directly for the result. And even fighting a whole country can be abused, which is how we got ENY.

The OP should know about what the 49ers abused in this vein until Hitech changed the underlying amount of damage needed, and down time to the HQ. What the OP wants was recently super abused because the 49ers enjoyed the game power of their single finger salutes to take away the majorities fun. Hitech made his view clear on the subject by changing the game itself to stop them from driving his paying customers away. Any of you remember just how we got ENY because of organized abuse of the game driving away paying customers...........

[NatCigg]

not so fast buster.  For the last 9 years we have seen drastic changes when minor adjustments were needed.

The OP has a very good point.  resup time going from 4 minutes to 30 minutes is a huge change! why not 10 minutes?

Also, a lone wolf can NOT take down all strats in one run.  70% down at one factory would be a good double drop.  that's TWO passes on the target, with a lancaster (bait), that took a long time to get to.  All this to have ANY chance at a base take with down times there being one or two enemy sup away from be nullified, unless a strat run is done to increase down times.  make strat runs pointless and the entire system fails, gameplay fails, people fail, and the game fails.  Add the fact strategic gameplay requires people and time, and there is not many people, and not much time.  These issues compound to create a rater uninspired experience online.

The reason furball lake is empty is ... its boring.  B O R E I N G . 

[scott66]

Sorry nat disagree.. you get to bomb I get to resup your bombs do 176 min down time damage my resup does 30 min on your 176 and not sure when you log in but I log in later on early evening and 176 logged in and ammo flying everywhere i haven't logged into wow or wot since ah3 went live and it's anything but boring

[Chris79]

Compromise,
A. Keep resupply times at 30mins
B. Keep all strats well removed from GV spawns, and at least .75 sectors from air fields.
C. Add more variability to the wind patterns so the 30k buffs can do very little damage unless they attack in mass.
D. Adjust resupply so M3's or goons can not bring an object to full up, I think a min of 5mins of downtime is sufficient.

[bustr]

The changes followed hand in hand with money\subscriptions and where organically the game was evolving. There is no longer the numbers to support allowing single finger salutes to ruin the few good hours a larger number of players are paying for at the same time. As the numbers grow, the game will evolve again. That swinging pendulum thing of competing player interests. Anyway Nat, you seem to be using this post to whine about the lack of interest by the current player base in fighter to fighter combat on the levels of a previous generation of paying customers. The numbers may well return but, the motivations of the next generation of players will probably turn furball lake into the gang bang mutual protection society and HO lake snowflake society.

[LocoMoto]

The reason it takes buffs so long is they're climbing to over 30k. Maybe if buff pilots didn't try and fly in the dweebosphere or bomb and bail there might be some sympathy.

Eventually astronauts will get bit in the rear for 30k drops. Gotta love the clouds! I've tried dropping on the city on crater when that dread cloud bank comes in. Your essentially blind dropping. Love it! So many new elements to learn about and tactics to adjust to.

[EagleDNY]

I've done a lot of bombing over the years, and I like MOST of the changes.  30 min resupply for each box of supplies does seem like the complete other end of the spectrum to me - I'd think there is no reason to not have it be 10 minutes per box like it is for everything else.  Especially if the resupply for strats is a simple M3 drive - which I myself do a lot of. 

[The Fugitive]

I couldn't care less about the resupply times. If Im running a bomber to strats Im in it for the run. Can I make it there? Can I hit the max targets? Can I make it back and get my name in lights?

You want to effect game play? Bring more bombs. Maybe one guys hit bases that could resupply, and you hit the strats? One guy shouldnt be able to effect the the whole game on a single run. As it is not, they no longer can.

[Marco]

The numbers may well return but, the motivations of the next generation of players will probably turn furball lake into the gang bang mutual protection society and HO lake snowflake society.

I enjoyed reading this.

[NatCigg]

The biggest difference in opinion comes from two types.  Those that play the game and to who fly a plane.  For me, I've done most all opportunities over the years.  In that time the game has been adjusted to suit whines or improve graphics. Many adjustments have been to the extreme.  4 minutes to 30 minutes is extreme. That's 7.2 times the previous amount. Read the op.  He Flys bombers, you don't.  He spent 2 hours in the air to make anot her separate mission possible.  Meaning, because of the way the strategy system is set up, his softie must happen before ANY other offensive operation can effectively begin.  Now he does not want it, nobody does.  It precipitates through the team to result in No offensive action being taken.   Have you played lately?  Do you see how incessantly boring the game is?  Did you notice player numbers down 75-80%?  And finally are YOU GOING TO FLY 2 HOURS IN A BOMBER TO EFFECTIVELY DO NOTHING?  nope.   Again, like most have said. Try the middle road, ten minutes, that 2.5 times the amount we lived with for the last year.  P.s.  having straps spread about the map is not as logical as centralised straps.  Again, not sure why ht  had to do the drastic step of removing central straps? The problem was with moving the location, not being centralized.  If they left central strats in the rear we would be happier campers.  Nope, extreme decisions rule the day, been that way 4 eva.

[Dobs]

Having been in a game where Solo Buffs heavily influenced the map, making it more difficult is a good thing. Now, having read through the post....having your actions totally negated in a few minutes is also a bad thing. 

Its possible a middle of the road should be tried...sometimes what looks good on paper doesn't play well and adjustments need to be made.

Dobs

[LCADolby]

Imagine if the Bomber pilots decided to group up and fly together against targets 

[Lusche]

Imagine if the Bomber pilots decided to group up and fly together against targets 

They did it quite a bit when we hat the central strats. Which is about the last time I had seen an actual high altitude, long range escorted bomber mission. We even had B-29 missions back then.
Now I'd almost say it doesn't matter anymore, because numbers are so low you hardly get enough players for anything like that anyway.

Again, not sure why ht  had to do the drastic step of removing central straps? The problem was with moving the location, not being centralized.  If they left central strats in the rear we would be happier campers.  Nope, extreme decisions rule the day, been that way 4 eva.

I may have a vague idea about the reasons, but whatever it was, it was badly executed and resulted in a lot of unbalanced gameplay for the strat game - from uneven locations to retaining settings which were tailored tot he distance and difficulty of the central strats and taking away an incentive for larger raids.
If it had been to provide closer targets, they should have added an additional layer of regionalized targets like railyards with a more local effect.

[LCADolby]

I still think zones need to return