Count me as another vote on the "HATES THE NEW DAR SETUP" side. Here is why:
- It has destroyed what to me was the fun of the GV game. GV'ing is about stealth, hiding, laying an ambush, a tense slow-burn game of hide-and-seek where you know somebody is out there, but are not sure exactly where. You inch forwards from covered position to covered position, scanning each time you stop every possible place they could be. If I could only do one thing in AH it would be to fly fighters, but I love AH because we get to do it all (fighters/bombers/gv's). It took me precisely one sortie the first time I logged in on new system to determine that gv'ing is not fun this way. Before anybody says it was because I died or something like that, not at all. I made 2 kills with my Firefly, then towered out to avoid a wave of enemy air that was heading our way. That brings up the 2nd problem:
- I wouldn't like it even if only other gv's could see your exact position, but since airplanes can also, then it completely ends gv play for me anyway. The sector dar makes it hard enough to avoid planes that even before seemed to always zero right in on your tank even when you are well hidden in the trees; but at least you had something of a fighting chance. This new system makes it so that tanks are absolute sitting ducks against attack planes. Even bombers up at mid levels using the bombsight can target you with some effectiveness using bigger bombs without even ever getting in icon range, and with zero risk to themselves. In fact, today ships were even targetting gv's with high effectiveness since they can see exactly where they are.
- Vulnerable vehicles carrying troops (M3/LVT/etc) have zero chance of using the only real defense they have available to them (stealth). At one of our bases that was under attack today, every time an enemy LVT spawned, we easily found it. Contrast that to last month where on 2 separate occasions probably half a dozen of us searched for 15-20 minutes for a hiding LVT that had made it ashore.
- Bombers have it the worst. You can instantly see them upping, and usually guess their target and approximately what altitude they will be at. This deprives them of the chance to get some alt and speed to make their target runs. I only tried one bomber sortie as well, and was shocked how many fighter instantly upped, clearly in reaction to my takeoff. I sank a ship and lit 2 others, shot down 2 enemy fighters and got a proxy, and made it home safely, but only due to the sheer speed of the TU-2 in a slight dive. It seems to me the likely result of this is that no one will ever fly the slower bombers, I know I won't.
- Slow fighters have a problem as well. Lets say you get a bunch of kills and are headed back home to land. You will never make it. Before you could ease out of the fight in a direction not in line with your base, curve around and sneak back home to land when low on fuel/ammo. Now its impossible unless you are in one of the faster fighters. It seemed to me that there was a distinct increase in P-51's, LA-7s, and Doras compared to usual (not that those planes arent always popular, but there were a lot less Zeroes/Spits/Yak3s/N1K's in evidence along with that).
- Tactical deceptions are nearly impossible now, and that is a shame because it was a lot of fun. Such as you get several squaddies to launch towards one base, get it flashing, but your real strike force is proceeding NOE to a different base. The NOE part still works, but the instant you pop, instead of just having 2 bases flashing both with dar bar, they can see instantly which is the real effort.
To sum it up, this change only favors fast fighters and people that like to target bombers and gv's to the massive detriment of gvs and bombers. Fair enough, I spent the rest of my short time available today flying fighters and attack missions. Even there though, although it certainly made life easier, as I easily intercepted several formations of bombers on takeoff, and bombed a number of gv's that I easily found; the challenge of finding them was gone. I have always enjoyed the hide and seek factor of trying to find vehicles whether I was in one myself or looking for them from the air. And the art of trying to interpret what darbar is telling you is completely unnecessary now. I'm not one to complain much about the game, as I have played it off and on for a very long time (nearly 18 years I think) and always loved it. I'm not one of those that is always threatening to quit and such (you can look at my history of posts both as FBDurr and Durr before I was a Freebird and see that to be true). I know this test is ending soon, and that was my only consolation because I do not think I will play again until I hear that it has changed.
