Radar Testing

[Wiley]

I saw a lot, constantly

The interceptors taking off behind the bombers, instead of in front of them. Tail chases instead of intercept courses. Arriving at the wrong altitudes. Rolling wirbels on a base for bomber raids that just traverse the edge of the dar at 25K. BBS complaints about "uncatchable" bombers. And last but not least a myriad of "CHEAT!" complains by buff pilots themselves, which I was never supposed to find because they "skipped all base dars"...

Well of course.  You and Zoney both obviously had second accounts, blahblahblah.

What I meant about failure was failure to find the bomber.  I see what you described above a bit differently.  Even with dots, they still come up behind or under the bomber.  That's not a matter of not knowing where the guy is, that's a matter of poor tactics.

Wiley.

[Ramesis]

I would say my 17 years invested is under threat. If its being tested which means its being considered.

 
27th

+1

[Ramesis]

Hey all,

  Haven't had time to play in to long of a time.  However, my wife owned a business in a small town.  Lots of people had 'great' ideas of how she should run her business.

  Unfortunately, none of them had skin in the game.  For example, if you think she should lower her cost for dry cleaning - cool.  How about you drive the 20 minutes to the nearest dry cleaner.  You think we should carry your favorite tape/color of pen, cool, you purchase 60 dollars worth and we will see how soon they sell.

  It is HiTech's game - it is his money.  Let him run his tests.  I don't care.  It is a great game.  I will maintain my subscription until it is gone. 

  Granted, we (as in the community) need to recruit some new blood - I am working this with my son, his friends and a grandson.  That is where the future is. If we loose the past, we are doomed to repeat it.

Regards,

+1

[Ramesis]

Two things:

1) That sounds to me like "gameplay".
2) How is that different from people seeing your bardar under the old system and coming after your mission?

Wiley.

Because... as long as they were outside an active dar ring... the ftr had to hunt for the buff

[Wiley]

Because... as long as they were outside an active dar ring... the ftr had to hunt for the buff

Oh.  You're talking about the singletons, not "missions".

Wiley.

[Ramesis]

Oh.  You're talking about the singletons, not "missions".

Wiley.

of course 

[Wiley]

of course 

Like I said, it was never difficult to figure out the heading and location to within visual range unless you were in an empty sector.  What kept most people from doing it was they don't want to climb for 15 minutes.

Wiley.

[toddbobe]

I dont want to sound like someone that just hates changes my beloved game. But this dar thing is making me nuts and I have been logging early in frustration.

In my opinion every advantage should have a counter measure. I was not a fan of GV dar because it did not have a countermeasure. I advocated just making the sound of the vehicles heard over a longer distance. That could be countered by having a plane in the area masking the vehicles noise. To me that encouraged team work. Often 72Dodge and I would roll into bases together in this way.

If we are expanding the dar to encourage fights, why not just expand the dar ring to give more coverage. Of course dar could be taken down. If downtime is an issue, just shorten the downtime and make the strats harder like the cities. I would hope that there would be a floor on the dar so NOE missions are possible. The counter for that is ground ack and fighters.

If full dar is really wanted why not have full dar for a short time if you can get troops into the enemy HQ. After all the HQ is useless now anyways.

I think this would achieve the desired affect of encouraging fights with minimal modifications and encourage teamwork.

Thats just my $0.02 worth and its way over priced.

[Electroman]

Like I said, it was never difficult to figure out the heading and location to within visual range unless you were in an empty sector.  What kept most people from doing it was they don't want to climb for 15 minutes.

Wiley.

Since I never see you in them...I'd encourage you to invest 1.5 - 2 hours on a few bomb runs now with the all seeing dar. See how that goes for you before you cast judgement on those of us who have spent significant time doing this.

[Wiley]

I have been on a couple runs, as well as watching what happens to friendly bombers.  I got schwacked a few times, got through others.  Not significantly different from what used to happen.

Wiley.

[The Fugitive]

I dont want to sound like someone that just hates changes my beloved game. But this dar thing is making me nuts and I have been logging early in frustration.

In my opinion every advantage should have a counter measure. I was not a fan of GV dar because it did not have a countermeasure. I advocated just making the sound of the vehicles heard over a longer distance. That could be countered by having a plane in the area masking the vehicles noise. To me that encouraged team work. Often 72Dodge and I would roll into bases together in this way.

If we are expanding the dar to encourage fights, why not just expand the dar ring to give more coverage. Of course dar could be taken down. If downtime is an issue, just shorten the downtime and make the strats harder like the cities. I would hope that there would be a floor on the dar so NOE missions are possible. The counter for that is ground ack and fighters.

If full dar is really wanted why not have full dar for a short time if you can get troops into the enemy HQ. After all the HQ is useless now anyways.

I think this would achieve the desired affect of encouraging fights with minimal modifications and encourage teamwork.

Thats just my $0.02 worth and its way over priced.

The radar really has nothing to do with how the game plays, tho it may change how some players play.

The whole point of the dar is to show a player logging in that there is action going on all over the map, and NOT a ghost town. It is then up to them to figure out what they want to do with that action.

[Alpo]

<snip> they still come up behind or under the bomber.  That's not a matter of not knowing where the guy is, that's a matter of **** tactics.

Hush Wiley or I'll drop an anvil on you.  We like it when they employ these most excellent methods.

 

[Wraith_TMS]

Long post; hopefully worth the review.

I haven't had a chance to play since this testing has started, and I'm NOT arguing for or against dar permanently changing to the new system.  That weasel clause aside, IF (IF...) this testing shows data that HTC believes a different approach to the Bar-Dar/Dar-Bar system of old IS needed, then maybe the "old" system can be improved without driving away players and still give newbies MORE information--or at least information that is easier to intuitively grasp.  So, I'm just throwing these mockups out to get people talking about more effective ways to show lots of information concisely.  I'm not married to either of these, btw.  First, I don't know that they're really better, and my mockups are really hamfisted.  Some code magic could probably improve them greatly, if adopted as general principles:

IDEA #1 "VERTICAL BARS":
Maybe the old sideways bars just don't cut the mustard anymore--for whatever reason--but a "bar" system displayed like a standard "chart" of levels might be more easily grasped than the old way?  I don't know--real user testing would show whether that idea holds water--but as an experiment, maybe code the dar bar to display BOTH vertical segment levels, as well as a horizontal, color coded overall activity bar.  Labels or hover tooltips should be used to explain the significance of each bar and/or color (e.g., longer bars denote enemy or friendly unit count).  It's just a variant on the old sideways bar dar that maybe might be more useful(?)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tc6zbcb1e6thedf/AHbardar1.png?dl=0



IDEA #2 "PIE-DAR":
Similar to the first general idea of displaying lots of data in a different format.  Here, rather than using bars, why not try to show activity in some sort of circular or "pie" dar configuration (I just grabbed some pie icons,  but it need not be pies ;-)...) .  Labels or hover tooltips should be used explain the significance of each slice or circle (e.g., concentric circles denoting enemy or friendly unit count, "danger" colors denote more activity).  It's just a variation on how to portray various components that comprise conflict in a sector.  A circle could even show the level of overall activity (white to yellow to orange to red, etc).  Just throwing it out there as an alternative.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jk4ekri6ruk68an/AHpiedar2.png?dl=0



Again, this just to stimulate constructive conversation about how to show action and yet give most players' game-play style some equal attention. 


FWIW,

[The Fugitive]

Long post; hopefully worth the review.

I haven't had a chance to play since this testing has started, and I'm NOT arguing for or against dar permanently changing to the new system.  That weasel clause aside, IF (IF...) this testing shows data that HTC believes a different approach to the Bar-Dar/Dar-Bar system of old IS needed, then maybe the "old" system can be improved without driving away players and still give newbies MORE information--or at least information that is easier to intuitively grasp.  So, I'm just throwing these mockups out to get people talking about more effective ways to show lots of information concisely.  I'm not married to either of these, btw.  First, I don't know that they're really better, and my mockups are really hamfisted.  Some code magic could probably improve them greatly, if adopted as general principles:

IDEA #1 "VERTICAL BARS":
Maybe the old sideways bars just don't cut the mustard anymore--for whatever reason--but a "bar" system displayed like a standard "chart" of levels might be more easily grasped than the old way?  I don't know--real user testing would show whether that idea holds water--but as an experiment, maybe code the dar bar to display BOTH vertical segment levels, as well as a horizontal, color coded overall activity bar.  Labels or hover tooltips should be used to explain the significance of each bar and/or color (e.g., longer bars denote enemy or friendly unit count).  It's just a variant on the old sideways bar dar that maybe might be more useful(?)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tc6zbcb1e6thedf/AHbardar1.png?dl=0

(Image removed from quote.)

IDEA #2 "PIE-DAR":
Similar to the first general idea of displaying lots of data in a different format.  Here, rather than using bars, why not try to show activity in some sort of circular or "pie" dar configuration (I just grabbed some pie icons,  but it need not be pies ;-)...) .  Labels or hover tooltips should be used explain the significance of each slice or circle (e.g., concentric circles denoting enemy or friendly unit count, "danger" colors denote more activity).  It's just a variation on how to portray various components that comprise conflict in a sector.  A circle could even show the level of overall activity (white to yellow to orange to red, etc).  Just throwing it out there as an alternative.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jk4ekri6ruk68an/AHpiedar2.png?dl=0

(Image removed from quote.)

Again, this just to stimulate constructive conversation about how to show action and yet give most players' game-play style some equal attention. 


FWIW,

But how do those make the arenas LOOK active? Thats the point of the dar now, to show players all those little planes they can go after.

[Odee]

Great!  100 or so miles, also with a decent idea of altitude on the bandit sounds fantastic, just like IRL.

TBH I am somewhat confused why HT didn't just extend radar range instead of turning on all seeing dar and then making mods to that.  It still allows for porking, but gives us more information from distance.

Wiley.

Would have been the wiser option, IMHO of course.