Not particularly picking on your personally Asterix, you seem considered. It's a pertinent (but ultimately pointless) discussion by this point, but I'd edit your post to read like this:-
Dedicated ACM is a niche activity in any online combat flight sim, including this one IMHO. That is why all those changes have been made (88mm, side switch etc), to combat another issue created by larger number of players not looking for a good fight, but looking for a way to circumvent a fight.
I choose that word advisedly. That might sound harsh and elitist however I spent soooooo many hours of hard work, study and countless deaths to acquire the ACM skills I have now. I have learning disabilities and am mostly self-taught. You'll forgive me then for thinking some players lazy and disingenuous to simply bypass all of that with picking, ganging, hording, ack-running, rinsing, repeating. Especially when that's all they do.
I was discussing this this evening with a friend via PM in-game. He suggested a problem is that all kills are 'rewarded' equally. For example last Friday on NDisles I had to fight like the devil for fifteen minutes against a coordinated Ki-43 and A6M, while a C.205, a Ki-61 and a Spit14 took casual swipes at me. After I killed the Ki-43 the Spit14 and Ki-61 left the scene sharpish. After I killed the A6M the C.205, despite having considerable energy & positional advantage, chose to invest that in a headstart on his ack. I landed two kills with lingering helmet fire & without a salute from anyone. Meanwhile, a certain Japanese player, let's call him Mr. Z, landed 9 kills in his P-51B. Anyone who knows him has no illusion how those kills were obtained. Picking people already in a fight (systematically ruining their gameplay - in effect - for his own pleasure) and diving and running more than a sector the moment he sees a remote threat at all.
I met him this evening. He refused an offered 1-on-1 turn fight against my Spit14 in his Bf109F-4 with an energy advantage. Seriously? Flew the Freddy exactly like he flies the Mustang. Diving over 10k to the deck before manoeuvring lazily in his ack hoping I'd follow. I couldn't even catch him in a Spit14. He made the space & broke precisely in the direction of his ack. Must have made a note of the heading.
I caught him once co-alt in a dip on the terrain, him in a Spit9 and me in my Ki-84. As my brother says: 'he couldn't drive a greasy stick up a dog's arse'. God-forbid he actually considers what I could do with a plane, he could do if he learned it. Why bother, the ACM-solving auto-ack is usually only a short run away.
Five years ago or perhaps more he'd have been 'called out' on 200 for selfish of ghey gameplay. FFS The Muppets et al would TEACH you stuff if you showed any interest at all & were prepared to work. Now no one says anything. Including me. The culture which proposed a more reasonable or mutually rewarding interaction has gone. The equitable gameplay in Aces High is gone. The numbers have gone. Come December I'll be gone too.
