the new map from a strat runner's perspective

[DubiousKB]

It's too bad we can't get the time from players to PARTICIPATE in strat attacks... They were alot of fun for both sides.  It's one of the game aspects that "hooked" me...   $15/month to participate in ET37's missions was a bargain..

The rear strats now would be evil to penetrate with bombers considering the flak resistance... Give each country an air start staged mission every two hours, then MAYBE we'd see some deep territory missions. (Or allow only top 10 ranked players from each country the ability to start one  )

As it stands Bustr, There's way more action on your map to satiate me than trying to roll water uphill by gathering players for a "long strat run" flight.

[Skuzzy]

I think it is there to promote combat.  Yes it is a strategic target,  but it should be for a"force" to attack, causing another force to defend, hence  combat.

Unfortunately, like many other things  (dive bombing lancs, spawn camping and such) in this game it has been bastidized into something people do that takes away others fun in the name of theirs, as in "its my 15 bucks, screw the rest of you"

No offense, but that is a bit myopic.  I can use myself as an example here. 

I suck at fighters and tanks.  So I fly bombers.  It is a challenge to get to the target, as you usually never have any fighter support, then to actually destroy the target is the same as you shooting down a plane.  I find most bomber pilots to be of the same mindset.

The Melee arena is exactly that.  Anything goes.  Whatever is fun for you, you do it.  If you find yourself trying to guide everyone into a specific style of game play, or find your fun being hurt by what others deem is fun, then the Melee arena is probably not the right arena for you (collectively speaking).

If you are not having fun in the Melee arena, then ask yourself what is fun for you, and then see if some others want to join in on that fun and leave the arena and go do it.  It is your $15 bucks and you should be having fun.

[The Fugitive]

I dont think so Skuzzy. This game has so much to offer in the way of massive combat options that seem to have been wittled down to the least common denominator.  Cant fight, HO. Cant ambush a tank, spawn camp. cant hit a hanger/tank/ammo bunker dive bomb with your lanc. Cant fight the enemies advance, drop a strat.

most everything in this game should be considered team oriented,  wingmen, bomber streams/groups, tank columns,  squad ops and so on. A single player shouldn't be able to effect the play of a group of players.

I fly bombers when there are no fights. i dont think I have been to a strat more than 2 or three times in all the years I have played. I bomb towns, hangers, ords along the front our team is working.  Im playing a combat game and so fly into combat trying to hit my targets, fend off attacks and make it home.

I do the same in gvs. While I suck at it, I still work at it. Both for my enjoyment and others as I provide a target if not some times a challenge to other players. who wouldn't want more ayers to play against?

I have been playing this game since tour 21 happily sending my $15 every month. I have seen the game go from mostly a2a combat to its hey day of epic battles to the watered down version we play now. Am I having fun still? Yup and next months check is on the way!

Just because you are not "good" at something isnt a good reason to avoid doing it. Practice makes everone better and avoiding it helps no one.

I would like to see everyone join in on the fun instead of "lone wolfing" it to the strats. you want to helpout the war effort and you feel that hitting the strats is the way to go? No problem,  load up a mission get a few others involved, make it fun for more people. Thats all Im saying.

[LocoMoto]

I think it is there to promote combat.  Yes it is a strategic target,  but it should be for a"force" to attack, causing another force to defend, hence  combat.

Unfortunately, like many other things  (dive bombing lancs, spawn camping and such) in this game it has been bastidized into something people do that takes away others fun in the name of theirs, as in "its my 15 bucks, screw the rest of you"

LoL what a joke. So here is a player like many in this community who attributes getting their butts kicked in MA to players using their $15 just to grief the enemy 

I have a really good example of this. Huge action between two bases. My enemy has been using it's momentum to gain ground on my base over time. 30-50 players between both sides in the air and on the ground. I decide to up 60 miles away climb above 20k to shut the base down. Let's say I am able to shut said enemy base down killing the action. To players like Fugi I am grieffing the action! Forget that my object is to create a window for a counter-attack against the enemy base which almost always works albeit for a small window. Now you have a situation where it appears like a horde creating a whole new argument.

There are so many ways to perceive someone's intentions. Dive bombing lancs? Did they destroy the target? If so why are you complaining? you or a fellow countryman should have stopped them. Dive bombing in any bombers requires skill to he accurate. If I find myself in a situation where I cant get to target flying straight and level without getting ate up I am going to do whatever it takes to achieve that victory whether it's snap rolling a Ho'ing interceptor or dive bombing the target. That is my time I invested and I wont he stopped if I can help it. It's not realistic you say? Let me see you pull black out g's for hours on hours in dogfights in real life without the side effects. Its a game and if I have to game the game to stay alive and achieve victory then so be it. Yall do the same when roles are reversed.

And for the record your damn straight everytime I up a plane I am looking to end someone's fun. It's a war game. Its cartoon kill or be killed. If I dont someone will come along and do that to me. Climb for 30 minutes just to get plucked out of the sky by a squad fighter sweep. I can imagine all thefunbeing had at my expense. Flip that, I take 3 hours and smack city/then HQ. Now said fighter sweep is blind and complains because of no radar but I make it to target and home regardless of whether i am intercepted or not. To the fighter sweepers im just a ruining their fun.


It is an endless circle game. We are all stuck with each other. I had to adapt to the crap players like yourself complain about years ago because it does suck when the enemyhas invested the time to set them up for success on a MA map.

[LocoMoto]

This map challenges status quo. It's something new. Its not a strategic map its an action map and well put together. Bustr put in the work HT approved it. We have it now and im grateful for that. Im just here to stand up for strategic play. Im always going to counter statements that label that as anything but what it is.

Argument can be made dive bombing lancs and spawn camping gvs isnt strategic its gaming the game. If that style of play opens up an opportunity for me to advance the cause of winning the war I capitalize on it regardless of the intentions. I dont have the paitence to spawn camp myself and only dive bomb if i have too. Hats off to those who do and are good at it.

[Skuzzy]

<snip>

You do realize you were dictating to others how they should play the game?

Everyone has their own idea of what is fun.  None of it is inherently wrong.  It is an open sand box and the Melee arena is the "anything goes" arena.

[molybdenum]

I would like to see everyone join in on the fun instead of "lone wolfing" it to the strats. you want to helpout the war effort and you feel that hitting the strats is the way to go? No problem,  load up a mission get a few others involved, make it fun for more people. Thats all Im saying.

Here's a snippet from a post I made a while back when this suggestion was made before.

"One of the "solutions" offered to those buff pilots unhappy with 30min resups was (summarized) "Well, don't just bring one set of buffs! Bring a mission in!" That's ignorant, and paradoxically even less effective than the lone wolf strat runs in achieving persistent downtimes: someone--often many someones--always resups after a major strat run, and (except for the city strat, which is hit much less frequently nowadays) a c47 or m3's sup drop generally covers all the damaged areas. So what does it matter if you get the strat to 30% or 90%? The same guy or guys can bring it to 100% in the same amount of time if they want to. And the lower the strat %, the greater incentive to resup from your counterparts on the other side who also play the game to win."

Granted that there is a sort of majesty in a 10 set buff mission to strats, and much fun undoubtedly can be had by all involved, but it's simply not my thing. I want what I do to help my team win. A massive mission to strats is, in my mind and most unfortunately, "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

[The Fugitive]

LoL what a joke. So here is a player like many in this community who attributes getting their butts kicked in MA to players using their $15 just to grief the enemy 

I have a really good example of this. Huge action between two bases. My enemy has been using it's momentum to gain ground on my base over time. 30-50 players between both sides in the air and on the ground. I decide to up 60 miles away climb above 20k to shut the base down. Let's say I am able to shut said enemy base down killing the action. To players like Fugi I am grieffing the action! Forget that my object is to create a window for a counter-attack against the enemy base which almost always works albeit for a small window. Now you have a situation where it appears like a horde creating a whole new argument.  <snip>

LOL! I give as good as I get! What is you in game name, have I run into you in game?

As for your scenario, I haven't a problem with you dropping the hangers to buy time to mount a defense. The problem arises when someone does it and laughs on 200 and then goes to play some place else. Not only has he messed with my fun, he has screwed up everyones fun that was there fighting for that base.

You do realize you were dictating to others how they should play the game?

Everyone has their own idea of what is fun.  None of it is inherently wrong.  It is an open sand box and the Melee arena is the "anything goes" arena.

Yes, to a point but aren't those single players dropping strats also dictating how a whole team has to play?

I think the game should be played in a certain way, yes, but only in the broadest general terms. To quote a well known web page....

"Aces High takes the art and science of vintage WW1 and WW2 air combat and sets it in a high intensity online multiplayer environment.  Hundreds of players simultaneously battle it out against each other in massive aerial dogfights and bomber raids. "

So, if that is the environment that the game was designed around why shouldn't we try and talk these players who avoid combat, how ever they may into playing along with/like the rest of us?

I dont have a problem with players hitting strats so much, I dont think a single players should be able to do enough damage to cripple another team. On the other hand should a group attack it now we have a battle.


Todays game play is a shadow of what was in its heyday. A mission today, even ET37's (RIP) was really nothing more than a horde attacking one field. Granted ET always put a spin on it and made it fun..... for those in the mission, but what of those on the other side? They either tried to get a ton of alt and pick bombers, or just moved to the other front.  Now had ET split his "force" as he saw the numbers he had joining he could have hit a couple bases getting some guys to stick around and defend at once place or another.

The point I'm trying to make is many players are avoiding the "spirit of the game" because they either find it too tough to join in, or are simply here to cause trouble. The game shouldn't be set up to "help" those players do that, it should be set up so they join in, or in the case of the bad apples removed.

Here's a snippet from a post I made a while back when this suggestion was made before.

"One of the "solutions" offered to those buff pilots unhappy with 30min resups was (summarized) "Well, don't just bring one set of buffs! Bring a mission in!" That's ignorant, and paradoxically even less effective than the lone wolf strat runs in achieving persistent downtimes: someone--often many someones--always resups after a major strat run, and (except for the city strat, which is hit much less frequently nowadays) a c47 or m3's sup drop generally covers all the damaged areas. So what does it matter if you get the strat to 30% or 90%? The same guy or guys can bring it to 100% in the same amount of time if they want to. And the lower the strat %, the greater incentive to resup from your counterparts on the other side who also play the game to win."

Granted that there is a sort of majesty in a 10 set buff mission to strats, and much fun undoubtedly can be had by all involved, but it's simply not my thing. I want what I do to help my team win. A massive mission to strats is, in my mind and most unfortunately, "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Again, one person shouldn't be able to dictate play for a whole team. Your one set of buffs shouldn't be able to take out more than a quarter of a strat, on the other hand the time invested by you to do that shouldn't be repairable any quicker either. But if you lone wolf it to a strat and I get 5 guys to hook up with me to resupply it, sure we should bring it up faster. I used a team, you didn't. The same should be true the other way, you and 3 other guys flatten a strat it should take me all afternoon to bring it back up by myself.

I want to see action in the game. with one player hitting the strat he isn't creating action and so should be discouraged by having the damage/aid to his team minimized. Encourage team work and so action by rewarding them with better damage/aid to their team by grouping up.   

[LocoMoto]

Fugi, the strats reset every 3 hours without resupply. They are defendable and can be resupplied fairly quickly. I get where your going but that isn't the MA. Never has been never will be. HiTech has done more to tweek the game in favor of your argument than mine. No more central strats. A nice buff to resup times. Huge buff to city strat and HQ along with impressive upgrades to Ack.

Normal players dont wipe out strats anymore quit living in the past. Its brutal striking city on some maps and I am estatic when i drop it more than 20%. Any other strats seems like they arent worth dropping below 60% due to OP resup. A normal sitting im logging 6 hours minimum. Strats are critical to advance or defend the map. So 1-4 strat runs a day is nothing. Your idea group attacks encourages multi-account same side tactics. Know a few players who run multi-accounts on the same side for this very reason. That is the only way a single player can accomplish what you talking about anymore. Then it's not there $15 its their $30,$45,$75

This game has gone more toward your style of play whoch is a huge kick in the balls. Its a spit in the face when your here complaining about things that have been addressed in game but since your list isnt fully checked off here you are!

With each change comes the opportunity to adapt and exploit. Fortunately for everyone these changes are imo helping improve the game for the long term. If only we could get a few hundred more sticks I would be happy.

[The Fugitive]

again, what is your in game name? I like to know who Im talking to.

As for "my type of game" I do it all. Milk runs, base porking, base capture, furball, base defense, on and on and on. Thats what is fun, there is so much available.  The problem is the new guys are gamers. They are goal orientated.  They dont cant about how they get "there".

It seems like your idea to slow/stop an advance is to bomb a strat. Mine is to get a few guys together  and pork some bases, or cap the area the enemy is coming in from. Creating combat/action/fun.

HTC isnt changing the game to make it better for one type of play or another. They make changes to try and keep it balanced. Players are the one who make changes to upset the balance, mainly because they don't want/cant raise their game play to meet the challenge.  So they look for the short cuts, and loop holes to get arond it. Hence  the watered down version we play today.

[ACE]

Never in my life as a aces high player has a strat being bombed 2 sectors from me or 20 has ever affected me. To be completely honest I didn't even know what the strats did and I still don't know what they look like(in person). I see bombers on them all the time. Even so I still can roll a plane and kill cartoon pilots so what's the big deal about strats lol.

[DubiousKB]

... Even so I still can roll a plane and kill cartoon pilots so what's the big deal about strats lol.

You must not have been involved in centralized strat/city/HQ "raids" which included a sizable portion of "cartoon" pilots to attack....   The large centralized missions to a given cities strats would always draw a good crowd of defenders, which meant it was always tense/fun for the attacking formation of bombers/escorts.

Times change, not bad, not good, but this cartoon pilot gets nostalgic for the 40-60+ players in a single sector at altitude tmixing it up. Doesn't hurt that ET37's recent passing makes for stand-out memories of large bomber formations lumbering into enemy territory. . .  with bomber bailing to maximize their playtime, it's understandable why we don't defend against lone bombers....But that formation of 10? you better believe there's going to be some excitement... Now to find 9 more people to fly...

[popeye]

Never in my life as a aces high player has a strat being bombed 2 sectors from me or 20 has ever affected me.

I can generally ignore the strat game, too.  However, I think field radar and ack makes for better fights so having them down for hours on end (Buzzsaw!) does affect my game.

[bustr]

Let me see how heightmap grayscale creation works out. If I can do it, I can rapidly prototype a new 20x20 sector arena in an art program, convert to 16bit raw, and import it into the TE. That should cut out several months of manual labor in the TE.

This is my first attempt at a random island shape. I'm using a contour gradient tool to change a black 2D shape into a 2D contour grayscale gradient topographic representation of the island shape. I have a program that supposedly will import this file and export it as a 16bit grayscale raw file. And then the TE supposedly will import that raw file and create all the land masses. I think if I make a small test terrain where I lay down some number of 3mile diameter land masses at elevations from 50 to 20,000ft. I can open that terrain's height.raw file and use the hex code for the different grayscale colors as my elevation pallet. After all I'm only making fantasy island's.

[hitech]

Let me see how heightmap grayscale creation works out. If I can do it, I can rapidly prototype a new 20x20 sector arena in an art program, convert to 16bit raw, and import it into the TE. That should cut out several months of manual labor in the TE.

This is my first attempt at a random island shape. I'm using a contour gradient tool to change a black 2D shape into a 2D contour grayscale gradient topographic representation of the island shape. I have a program that supposedly will import this file and export it as a 16bit grayscale raw file. And then the TE supposedly will import that raw file and create all the land masses. I think if I make a small test terrain where I lay down some number of 3mile diameter land masses at elevations from 50 to 20,000ft. I can open that terrain's height.raw file and use the hex code for the different grayscale colors as my elevation pallet. After all I'm only making fantasy island's.


(Image removed from quote.)

Heads up, if you are working in 8 bit gray scale, a conversion will not work very well.

One shade up or down will be 256 foot change in elevation.

HiTech