What happened to missions?

[Wiley]

You still see the occasional one.  Last month I saw an organized set of 5 or 6 bomber boxes and a few escorts roll a few bases on our front.  It was fun to see, they used the clouds to their advantage, and enough people upped to defend it was a relatively fun fight.

As for spiez/rats/people figuring out your next move/whatever else, if your mission depends on a complete lack of enemy resistance, your mission sucks and deserves to fail.

Wiley.

[bustr]

It was the later missions getting towards the time period of when the AH3 closed alpha started that were not working no matter what gyrations the FreeBirds went through. Wonder what the FreeBirds did to get treated that way in the first place. By then it was common knowledge players had other accounts and kept a laptop open, players were PMing, 3rd party VOXing, and texting game info. Players were keeping track of players leveraging films and .wingman. So ad-hoc showing up disorganized, eventually with numbers became the norm instead of formal missions. You can't rat out people who all just happen to be wandering towards the same destination hoping other green guys are doing the same thing. Disorganization has some virtue.

[bustr]

If I were investigating something like spoiled NOE missions, first I would put on my tin foil hat just to give the Wizards of AH Smart a target to blow up at. So here....

You could investigate it from gamer's are naughty little boys or, you can investigate it from who had the most to gain by outing missions. Personal gain versus revenge, over the long haul, revenge takes way too much emotional energy to keep it going after the first successful spoiling of a mission. And carrying it on after just for the greifing, those end up outing themselves by doing it too much and too frequently. They get careless and arrogant with success.

Now personal gain, yes you can gain from spoiling base captures to help your country defend against loosing the war or winning the war. That is too strategic and long viewed to be realistic for this game. So what can be gained in the short term? Spoiling an NOE mission always exposes the members to combat which most mission followers didn't want to fight and joined the mission to avoid combat. So one way to force them to fight, expose them when they can't do anything but fight. Does not matter if you are in their country or another, when the mission is spoiled, combat will happen.

Tin foil hat off... 

[Oldman731]

As for spiez/rats/people figuring out your next move/whatever else, if your mission depends on a complete lack of enemy resistance, your mission sucks and deserves to fail.

Hah!  I like this.

- oldman

[Lusche]

Many NOE missions are busted because not everyone stayed below the dar threshold.  On take off they would pop.  As a turn is made they would pop.  it was obvious, you would see a small darbar and then gone, up again and then gone, up again a sector closer to target and then gone.  The more participants you had the more likely it would be given away.

Stop the delusional paranoia.

Also they often went through CV dar circles. Or the next target was simply obvious, especially when shortly before a member of a well know NOE grabber suicided on the DAR with not even trying to pork anything else.

Missions?  I still wish I had the recording of when we had 100 B-17s Yes 33 pilots at least, a full wing of P-51 (15-20) escort to Knight Capital.  Many years ago, had the time of my life leading that one and had GREAT Fighter protection.  That one of the few ones that did NOT get ratted out on 200. 

I have never understood those people expecting their multi darbar 20k bomber+escorts mission would go unnoticed for 30 minutes. It's amazing how often I got angry PMs explaining that I could have found them only by spies/shades, all while I was watching their darbar move slowly across the map 

(Hint: a 50% fuel B-17 takes 30 minutes to reach 25k, a 100% fuel Ta-152 only 9...)

[thndregg]

Also they often went through CV dar circles. Or the next target was simply obvious, especially when shortly before a member of a well know NOE grabber suicided on the DAR with not even trying to pork anything else.

I have never understood those people expecting their multi darbar 20k bomber+escorts mission would go unnoticed for 30 minutes. It's amazing how often I got angry PMs explaining that I could have found them only by spies/shades, all while I was watching their darbar move slowly across the map 

(Hint: a 50% fuel B-17 takes 30 minutes to reach 25k, a 100% fuel Ta-152 only 9...)

LOVE it when our "billboard" darbar gets some attention. Then the fight's on! Clear across the damn map, too! 

[Ack-Ack]

Maybe if the mission system would grant some sort of rewards for a successful mission, like extra perks, it might cause players to start running missions again.

[Mongoose]

Maybe if the mission system would grant some sort of rewards for a successful mission, like extra perks, it might cause players to start running missions again.

Much like virtue, running missions is its own reward.   

[wil3ur]

In the past when the Bish were doing a ton of NOE Lanc raids, it became very predictable where they would hit.  Find a base 1-2 sectors away from a bish base that is currently 4-5 sectors away from the nearest flashing base, and you pretty much were guaranteed to find an NOE coming in.  Add to that their pension for sending a single Jabo to take down dar before the mission gets there, and it was just one big telegraph where they were headed.

One time in particular Bone, SYSTEM, Redbull, myself and a few others were in a big 262 Gaggle.  We ended up finding a Bish NOE and smacked the hell out of it.  Decided to head to another base away from the front to land, and ran into a SECOND NOE!!!  We busted that up and again went to another base only to find them headed there NOE now.  At this point we were all low on gas and out of ammo, but still managed to break up the mission and all but one of us made it back to base to land 20+ kills in a single sorte.

Oh the tears were delicious and the rage PM's about how we were spying were even better...  just so happened the good bases to land a 262 at away from the front were the same bases bish thought would be undefended and an easy take.   

[Zoney]

LOVE it when our "billboard" darbar gets some attention. Then the fight's on! Clear across the damn map, too! 

LOl yep, great fights ensue.  I will be tracking you guys for 30 minutes, trying to figure out where you are going, getting in a position to intercept and then I will see another friendly doing the same, maybe from a different base and angle, roll my mouse over the player and inevitably, "Snailman" comes up.  Then the race is on because that bastage steals my kills!

[Flayed1]

LOl yep, great fights ensue.  I will be tracking you guys for 30 minutes, trying to figure out where you are going, getting in a position to intercept and then I will see another friendly doing the same, maybe from a different base and angle, roll my mouse over the player and inevitably, "Snailman" comes up.  Then the race is on because that bastage steals my kills!

 So is the scene something like this between you two?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvTLhkEyWQw

[Lusche]

  Then the race is on because that bastage steals my kills!

Little risk these days though, as I'm rook since a while ago and will become a Bishop this weekend.

[zack1234]

So i guess from the threads there will be no missions organised because the unicorn king has put a spell on the game

[DubiousKB]

So i guess from the threads there will be no missions organised because the unicorn king has put a spell on the game

Usually it's no missions because of bad timing. I love missions, but hate spamming country channel and waiting more than 10 minutes. Pickup Missions require some patience and an investment of time, which we all have a limited amount of...

I never understood why the pickup missions didn't take off and there wasn't something being run every hour. I've run a few on the rook side, and it seems like ppl are annoyed with country text spam. I've gotten a few, and we always have a good time, but it's not easy to convince someone to land immediately, or bail out to join a mission.

All I can do is keep trying to post them, i've been trying to run squad missions to at least ensure a few people in the mission to entice others, but it just doesn't seem to be the draw that it used to be. (no i don't run NOE. or even base captures for that matter, just enjoy heading out as a group to stir poo up)

[Mister Fork]

Personally,  this has been an issue for Aces High for a couple of years.  Lack of willing mission builders in the arena...and this...

... the tendency for plays to just up an airfield, find a lone enemy airplane, and follow the horde of 3-6 fellow countrymen, club them to putty, and call it a good kill. 

I just don't get that type of gameplay. Why do we need 3-6 players to pounce on a single plane and pummel them into oblivion? When I see it, I just avoid and fly away.  Now, sometimes when there are multiple bogies, you do see excellent engagements when you have multiple contacts and you work together with 6 calls, coordination of planes, and other collaborative style gameplay tactics. That is what I think most of want to see happen. 

Maybe more missions will help eliminate that style of seal clubbing style of gameplay?