What happened to missions?

[saggs]

I'm a long time off and on player.  I become somewhat active again since the Steam deal, and one thing that has been a surprise for me is that from that time, I have not seen a single mission posted.

Used to be every night there was at least one squad posting a mission or two.  I once belonged to a squad (that I see are still active knights) that posted missions all the time, usually with good participation.  I've flown squadless for a long time now, just doing my own thing, but I would still join a mission once in while if there was not other great action going on.  Sometimes the missions where boring (just rolling undefended bases) but often they would stir up some great fights that I loved.

Is it just the smaller numbers? or is there some other reason that posted missions have died away?

[Lusche]

To my understanding smaller numbers where the main culprit in this process. Most missions actually drew only a small percentage of the players online. That wasn't really a big thing when a side could muster 100 players total, but when it's down to 20 players you won't get the necessary minimum number of participants to make most missions viable. When only 2 players show up for a basegrab or a fightersweep, you might as well just take off individually.
Smaller overall numbers also led to the decline of the big, multi wing squadrons of old, which made up the core of most large missions.
Bomber missions also got really hurt when the central strats where split up. It makes no much sense to conduct bomber raids on dispersed targets that a single player already can level all by himself.
Remember we once even had B-29 missions? (No idea how I could get the 'kill 4 B-29 in a sortie' these days' )

And like so often, once a tradition is broken it's difficult to get it going again. The great mission leaders have mostly left us, and many players have never witnessed the constant stream of "MISSION UP!" on country channel. Which is a pity - I'm convinced missions where massively helpful to retain and train new players. These days, they are mostly on their own...

[zack1234]

Post a proper mission and not a Alpha male mission where you want to be in charge even though you dont have a clue on how to take a base

[icepac]

Posting missions seems to get them busted while simply calling in PM to gather up a few players doesn't.

[zack1234]

So Saggs is going organise missions or is he just making a observation 

[JunkyII]

They turned into..."strike mission rolling from A"X" in 3 minutes"....

[Lusche]

They turned into..."strike mission rolling from A"X" in 3 minutes"....

Haven't even seen a single one in the past 1.5 months.

[JunkyII]

Haven't even seen a single one in the past 1.5 months.

have you seen their fearless leader..

[Marco]

We have a few people on Bishops that will post a mission from time to time; Reaper, ghi, and KrisKros, just to name a few.

Then, if you're looking for a small group to follow for some dogfights it never hurts to find Kanth, Dutch, and Jazzi.

I do terribly miss those large missions from way back, where I'd see 15 - 25 pilots in P51's and 7 or 8 sets of B17's flying long distance to destroy a few fields.

[Randy1]

The mission planer is a bit clunky as well.  Not because it does not work just there are a lot of variables to set.  It has always been difficult to keep up with the players in the mission to assign targets.

Add to that the trees, hills and the building at the end of the runway so to have to pretest a takeoff.  HTC has fixed some of these problems.

I know ET had quite a number of saved missions but they would many times lead to spawning in th the hanger when the runway did not match the saved mission.  In ah2,  you could takeoff from the hanger but in ah3 not so much.

[Beau]

Missions worked well until m3 sup was introduced also. Kind of a enthusiasm killer when 8 guys noe a base and take it down only to find that 3 or 4 m3 suppers thwart the hard work.
Coot

[lunatic1]

To my understanding smaller numbers where the main culprit in this process. Most missions actually drew only a small percentage of the players online. That wasn't really a big thing when a side could muster 100 players total, but when it's down to 20 players you won't get the necessary minimum number of participants to make most missions viable. When only 2 players show up for a basegrab or a fightersweep, you might as well just take off individually.
Smaller overall numbers also led to the decline of the big, multi wing squadrons of old, which made up the core of most large missions.
Bomber missions also got really hurt when the central strats where split up. It makes no much sense to conduct bomber raids on dispersed targets that a single player already can level all by himself.
Remember we once even had B-29 missions? (No idea how I could get the 'kill 4 B-29 in a sortie' these days' )

And like so often, once a tradition is broken it's difficult to get it going again. The great mission leaders have mostly left us, and many players have never witnessed the constant stream of "MISSION UP!" on country channel. Which is a pity - I'm convinced missions where massively helpful to retain and train new players. These days, they are mostly on their own...

^^what he said^^

[Bizman]

Haven't even seen a single one in the past 1.5 months.

I joined a couple last Friday. Also I know a couple were withdrawn because of plane and/or resources availability issues.

[Randy1]

There are those that are afraid of not hitting their target.  I will say I have never been in a mission that anyone accosted a player because they missed their target.  ET set he standard on the Rook side.  "Don't worry.  You will get it next time.", he would say.

[Traveler]

Missions worked well until m3 sup was introduced also. Kind of a enthusiasm killer when 8 guys noe a base and take it down only to find that 3 or 4 m3 suppers thwart the hard work.
Coot

A well planned mission might have accounted for taking down the VH at supporting bases.  It's more a problem of numbers now a days.   The 113th lucky strikes is running missions but only for it's members.