Aces High 'Classic'?

[ghi]

Okay ghi, just so I don't misunderstand his suggestion (seeing he has made 30 or 40 so far), what was the "best feedback"?

Right here in this thread Jimmy, let me explain, just bare with my English.
The "classic"  before 2008 was a better game for first category of mindsets that i described few pages back, players that think "we" not "I". Yes, we got more toys better graphics, but the game "essence" changed.  Now all score vulch, stacking kills, all personal achievements, even a subforum was was added here full of selfish personal achievement, i would be happy to squelch on game text.
  New versions ever since eliminated team vs team strategic gaming , step by step and with it most of the players interested in this side of the game.
 Here is how, and what i believe would fix it;

    Bases are way more difficult to capture, more guns added, massive towns.
let's be realistic, we have 10-15 players/team left in MA most of the day ,half not interested in base capture maybe 3-4 afk and ; it's close to impossible to capture bases.
 
In AH1 i could take down a town myself with a P47 and was 1 gun in town, now are 8 guns and you need 5-6 heavy or bombers to do it ; I would reduce with 50% the number of  buildings needed for WF, and no more than 3 guns in town.

This was the size of town in AH2 for MA populated with 500-600 players ; was even smaller and AH1 but i don't have any screenshot from AH1.


 Ports was 1 vh +1/2 guns now you have 1 vh+fh+a dozen of guns. fix suggestion; reduce the guns 50%


 Vbases  in AH 1,  1 vh and 2 guns now you have 4 vhs+fh and a dozen of guns; i would reduce it to 1 vh +fh/Storch hangar, 2 autoguns, 1 88mm AA, 1 x maned gun 37mm.






 Bases were not linked with this endless spider webb of GVs spawns ; now  GVs spawn everywhere and invisible ninja resuping m3s. Fix solution ;Reduce the spawn options 50%.
The spawn points on old cool Mindanao map vs now; there were even less spawns in AH1.


  Dot command spy tool capable to check every base assets downtime  status better than CIA,KGB,Mosad combined; i never liked it, i would eliminate it totally.

Allow NOE strikes, low radar settings eliminated  NOE ; bring back old settings , let teams trade bases easier.

Reduce the map auto-reset time from whatever is now 7 days to 2 days max 48, around 4 AM when numbers are low  doesn't affect many players.


 HQ  raids ignited  the best close to ww2 raids fights in MA format, was the best part of the MA game running raids or defending against .
 Now is eliminated neutralized with a short dowtime.
I undestand was because 49ers drove 4 hours in tanks and took it down?! so what?  was a feature of the game they deserve a pizza after that long off road driving.
This is i believe the worst change in game, HQ could have been developed introduced in map reset requirments. I would set HQ  hardness to 200,000 lbs, soo would need min 4 sets of B29s / 5 sets xlancs 8 sets of B24s /11 sets B17s.
 Set HQ downtime to min 20-30 min, without resuping option, and shouldn't be possible to destroy it more than once by each team, defend it or enjoy the darkness. 
 And... change map reset requirements , from 20% base captured needed from both teams now, to 10%+HQ destroyed from both teams. Increase Komet ENY value to 40 , so is not affected by ENY. This will bring back strategic bombing raids.

Increase the perk points reward for war winning team from 20 to 100 perks( are printed on computer like Federal Reserve anyway, let players enjoy fancy toys more often) ; reward the perks for all players that spent most of their time in winning team, not only for those online at the time of reset. This would eliminate inbalance caused by last moment side switching.

Set a specific downtime for towns, base assets, stop this cargo shipping madness. 

Eliminate GVs radar, base blinking was enough and more realistic for years.

Eliminate invisible GVs .  Bring back old gvs icon range from air, was 1 k i believe. No icon from GV to GV.

Add icon to chutte bailed to maproom, it's unfair to have invisible combatant elements ,nothing fun strafing the maproom.

Eliminate score and rank, it's a scale of selfishness and cowardliness , does not promote fight in any way. Rewarding the teams you reward 33% of your players not 1. Open DA and let people measure their size.

If this game is going to revive, is going to revive with strategy oriented players that were majority and filled up this arena over years.

 Amen!                         
                                                                                                 

[ccvi]

If this game is going to revive, is going to revive with strategy oriented players that were majority and filled up this arena over years.

Probably. It is the only unique thing here. Planes and furball exist elsewhere.

However, I think the list of roll-back seems execessive.

Aaa is easy enough to kill with cannons, and many 50 armed planes have an option to carry rockets.
Towns were smaller, but needed to be down 100%. That required a real close look. Today Lancs and b24s can WF in one pass, often ending a few buildings short though.

A few builings? A least I can see the precise number: font-size set in a way that town is WF exactly when .dt fills the complete window. Rows with no down-message = number of builings missing. Like before with 100% it needs a close look, just at something different. Having to look at the actual objects instead of the text adventure would make it a better game though.

Speaking of things to look at: The main challenge for attackers and defenders now is to watch for m3s. As soon as there is even a little fight in the air it becomes pretty dangerous. In the old day sufficient air superiority was needed to get a goon through. Today there's no time to achieve it, because m3s can rush through while the fight for superiority is in progress. There's a better chance attempting to slip through with troops before too many supply packages can make it (dropped from half a mile out).

Gv-vs-gv is a thing these days. I doubt we'll see that go away. Nor should it, it adds to the variety of targets from the air. If the war was on the ground an aircraft just supporting... if. Not enough players, and not enough for the main war going on on the ground.

Hidden single defending pilots were probably an option long time ago (bailed pilots always had the .45 and no icon? I may not remember correctly). Either the art of hiding hadn't been invented to the same degree, or the typical air drop was harder to defend against withe the pistol, needing to stay close to the map room to catch something inbound from a random direction. Close to the MR being an easy target for strafing.

More hangars: More effort to take them down is not the problem. Also gives bombers more use. Taking them down simultaneously requires good coordination, which is missing. That was always difficult, only today it's requiered. Non-simultaneuos hangar kills create a pretty short window of flight disabled. Creates a shorter window to fight for superiority. Which is used for M3 rushes from both sides (faster to get there by plane to fight).

Maybe there could be creative solutions. Set down time of dead hangars to max when any other hangar of the same kind is killed? Reduce capture requirement to 5 troops or increase M3 capacity to 15 to avoid that a single .45 has a significant impact? Spawns further out (fewer removes some of the ground war)?

[nugetx]

Right here in this thread Jimmy, let me explain, just bare with my English.
The "classic"  before 2008 was a better game for first category of mindsets that i described few pages back, players that think "we" not "I". Yes, we got more toys better graphics, but the game "essence" changed.  Now all score vulch, stacking kills, all personal achievements, even a subforum was was added here full of selfish personal achievement, i would be happy to squelch on game text.
  New versions ever since eliminated team vs team strategic gaming , step by step and with it most of the players interested in this side of the game.
 Here is how, and what i believe would fix it;

    Bases are way more difficult to capture, more guns added, massive towns.
let's be realistic, we have 10-15 players/team left in MA most of the day ,half not interested in base capture maybe 3-4 afk and ; it's close to impossible to capture bases.
 
In AH1 i could take down a town myself with a P47 and was 1 gun in town, now are 8 guns and you need 5-6 heavy or bombers to do it ; I would reduce with 50% the number of  buildings needed for WF, and no more than 3 guns in town.

This was the size of town in AH2 for MA populated with 500-600 players ; was even smaller and AH1 but i don't have any screenshot from AH1.
(Image removed from quote.)

 Ports was 1 vh +1/2 guns now you have 1 vh+fh+a dozen of guns. fix suggestion; reduce the guns 50%
(Image removed from quote.)

 Vbases  in AH 1,  1 vh and 2 guns now you have 4 vhs+fh and a dozen of guns; i would reduce it to 1 vh +fh/Storch hangar, 2 autoguns, 1 88mm AA, 1 x maned gun 37mm.

(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)




 Bases were not linked with this endless spider webb of GVs spawns ; now  GVs spawn everywhere and invisible ninja resuping m3s. Fix solution ;Reduce the spawn options 50%.
The spawn points on old cool Mindanao map vs now; there were even less spawns in AH1.
(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)

  Dot command spy tool capable to check every base assets downtime  status better than CIA,KGB,Mosad combined; i never liked it, i would eliminate it totally.

Allow NOE strikes, low radar settings eliminated  NOE ; bring back old settings , let teams trade bases easier.

Reduce the map auto-reset time from whatever is now 7 days to 2 days max 48, around 4 AM when numbers are low  doesn't affect many players.


 HQ  raids ignited  the best close to ww2 raids fights in MA format, was the best part of the MA game running raids or defending against .
 Now is eliminated neutralized with a short dowtime.
I undestand was because 49ers drove 4 hours in tanks and took it down?! so what?  was a feature of the game they deserve a pizza after that long off road driving.
This is i believe the worst change in game, HQ could have been developed introduced in map reset requirments. I would set HQ  hardness to 200,000 lbs, soo would need min 4 sets of B29s / 5 sets xlancs 8 sets of B24s /11 sets B17s.
 Set HQ downtime to min 20-30 min, without resuping option, and shouldn't be possible to destroy it more than once by each team, defend it or enjoy the darkness. 
 And... change map reset requirements , from 20% base captured needed from both teams now, to 10%+HQ destroyed from both teams. Increase Komet ENY value to 40 , so is not affected by ENY. This will bring back strategic bombing raids.

Increase the perk points reward for war winning team from 20 to 100 perks( are printed on computer like Federal Reserve anyway, let players enjoy fancy toys more often) ; reward the perks for all players that spent most of their time in winning team, not only for those online at the time of reset. This would eliminate inbalance caused by last moment side switching.

Set a specific downtime for towns, base assets, stop this cargo shipping madness. 

Eliminate GVs radar, base blinking was enough and more realistic for years.

Eliminate invisible GVs .  Bring back old gvs icon range from air, was 1 k i believe. No icon from GV to GV.

Add icon to chutte bailed to maproom, it's unfair to have invisible combatant elements ,nothing fun strafing the maproom.

Eliminate score and rank, it's a scale of selfishness and cowardliness , does not promote fight in any way. Rewarding the teams you reward 33% of your players not 1. Open DA and let people measure their size.

If this game is going to revive, is going to revive with strategy oriented players that were majority and filled up this arena over years.

 Amen!                         
                                                                                                 

Thank you Ghi, I was waiting for someone to make a post like that.
The game changed dramaticaly over the years.
It seems back in the time it was more fun.

[nugetx]

roll it back!  to pre 2008


And HTC promote Ghi to make all gameplay decisions, he knows his AH like no else.

[Vraciu]

Interesting points, GHI. 

I’ve always found the GV spawns a tad Byzantine, frankly.   

[Meatwad]

The most fun I had was in AH1, then AH2 was alright the first couple of years. The achievements were a big no for me, it just appeals to the greedy call of duty me me me mindset.

I will admit I dropped my sub. If there was an AH1 arena using the last version before it was updated to AH2, using only the AH1 graphics, AH1 planeset, And AH1 original maps I would be more interested in resubbing. If it came at a reduced rate of maybe $7 a month, which would only include AH1 main arena, AH1 training arena only, I would resub for sure.

AH3 has a lot of eye candy, but it just doesn't appeal to me like the other versions. Its unfortunately because of too big of maps and not remotely enough player numbers to support them

[JoBravo20]

Hi, If I can say something from MY perspective, I strongly think that Aces High does not even have enough advertisement. I am from Malta and do not know anyone else who plays it here or know about it. I got to know about it because I decided to do some research about ww2 online games.

Apart from lack of advertisement;

many people do not like the idea of paying monthly to play a game (especially the younger ones)
The graphics are not the most attractive, especially not enough for today's standards and competition. Take a look at other games including war thunder, world of warships. Back somewhere around 2011 I used to play Wings of Prey everyday online. It DID NOT have the gameplay of Aces High and neither the social abilities. But it had better visuals in graphics and sound, you only paid once for the game and there were different modes like team deathmatch, area conquer etc.

If I had to compare those two games (AH and WoP) I think (for me, who I was only 16/17 years old) those would be main differences that made me more attracted towards the other.
And I'm talking way back 7 years ago.... while AH2 was online with (not so good graphics) you already had these games with much better visuals.

This is another problem I think, that it seems like AH did not manage to keep up with the evolving game visuals etc. And if I have to make another point...... certain other games also use realistic maps.

If I have to talk about what I do not like from my experiences since April-ish, certainly one of them would be spending about an hour flying around looking for fights (because I am more into fighter gameplay) and just being disappointed having to RTB with no action, not just no kills, but even NO ACTION. I don't mind getting killed if the fight was good and I know I put all my efforts into it.

Maybe HTC needs to consider looking at other modern games, which are catered for almost every kind of player base. You could have Team deathmatch sessions, for the guys who want to get in and only havefighter action. You could have mission sesions where you need to have sets of bombers destroy certain targets and they would need escorts with them as well so you can cater for 2 different types of players.

You can have an area capture session where you would need a mixed battle involving tanks and planes....


If I would have to talk about the present and right now though..... I think that for the present playerbase, the maps are too big (really) and we have one exrta side..... I dont think there is a big enough playerbase for 3 sides.  Those would be 2 main points in my opinion as to why the game currently (s*cks)

And yes in my opinion the old guys who just keep whining about the game changing are part of the ruining process (referring also to people "threatening to quit" with each update / game change)

You HAVE to accept change. You can't not change in today's modern, fast changing and evolving world ! Otherwise you won't keep up with the competition. You can't just rely on your present player base because nobody will be here forever. You always have to think of ways to attract new players and you do so by also looking at the competition.




Sorry for the long post people, I put a large amount of energy in writing this post and I feel like I got some stuff off my chest.

My intention is to try and help, and this comes from a "new guy" if you wanna listen to "younger players"





Cheers and Salute
 
 

[Toad]

Don't know how many hours I've played AH since the Beta. I'd say uncountable but I'm sure one could total up the online hours from the records. I played a lot though. But, life happened. Squadmates move on; a couple died. Life events. Took a break or two. Been paying for over a year without playing.

I've always and only really been interested in the fighter combat. Bombing when it was necessary and when there was a point to it, a reason that helped the squad; not just to score points or whatever. GVs...never; bore me to tears.

I think, for me, the best times were before the field & town "hardness" got to the point that they led to the horde mode of capture. Heck, I had a blast when all you had to do was land on an enemy runway and exit to capture. It led to wild fights and fast paced back and forth capture action. I loved that stuff.  Then there were the 3 P-51 and 1 C-47 NOE raids to the enemy rear area with Rude, Sax and Beemer with the only reason being to quickly capture a field and start a fight. Great times. But then, I'm a simple man. I don't need all the strategy and carefully planned big missions to have fun.

Anyway, my perspective is this. I DON'T need everyone to play my way. What I do need is some/enough people that play for essentialy the same reason I do. Right now the game seems pretty much a GV game to me...anyway, the last time I spent some time in it seemed that way.

I'm at a trigger point. I've either got to drop the subscription or start playing regularly again. I'll probably vacuum the inch of dust off the controllers and give it a shot here one more time. Just have to see where it goes from there. I no longer have the cat-like reflexes and eagle-eyed vision I had back when this started though.    Probably just be easy meat on the table now.

I wish HTC and the game itself the very best.

[Lazerr]

Make base supply by c47 only.. watch the fights that come out of it.  It would make a huge difference at low population hours, and moderate during peak times.

Folks will get in tanks and fighters to defend, maybe even bombers to hit the attacking bases, rather than the first and easiest option.. resupply....

[bustr]

Right now 9am PT California riftval is up with 57 players. There is activity in three areas with the majority online engaged including a happy strat raider. Took me two years of building terrains with specific experiments embedded in them to understand how to bring players together in small numbers on a 10x10 terrain. All players means all of Hitech's customer types. Not just one segment dreaming of the old glory days. Our industry competition is for airplane players and tank players which half of our paying customers drive tanks.

To date riftval is probably the most real world realistic topography terrain the MA has ever hosted. That didn't happen over night, more like 7 months out of a two year long process of experimenting to understand how to promote activity out of small numbers of players on 10x10 terrains. On average the terrains I built leading up to riftval took about 6 months each. Even Oceania is realistic to a point and (BowlMA, Oceania, riftval) promote activity with small numbers of players.

It's easy to tell Hitech what he has to do, then all of you seem to have the same blind spot in not realizing terrains are built by players and not Hitech(HTC). Except for my three terrains in the queue, all of the converted AH1-AH2 era terrains were designed for hundreds of players with field and GV spawn relationships from an era of up to 60 plane NOE hoards. All those older terrains were designed to slow down hoards with the expectation of hundereds of excess players running around creating activity all the time. Today when our numbers barely reach 200 on a good weekend night, those terrain designs slow down activity becasue they were designed that way.

I can't do anything about realistic looking with those older terrains and it's simply easier to start from scratch with a design theme. On my three terrains if Hitech reduced the percentage of town down and raised the minimum radar to 200ft, there would be more activity than current and the strategy aspect would naturally come back as small groups raced to flip the map. During that most of the feilds are close enough by design, the furballers would bang away until the war was won like usual.

Before 2009 when the numbers were in the hundreds, the primary game in the MA was capture the flag by unskilled and average players lead by skilled member's of squads. Today you see occasional vestiges of that when a group in some country organically starts a base capture roll. I've been in them and it's like the old days for an hour or so. Mostly that does not happen anymore because it requires a tipping point of numbers to overcome the waiting sharks looking for easy kills. Nothing really happens anymore in the MA becasue of those waiting sharks. Sneaking around has it's merits if you want players to start working as groups again and not me, me, me, me, waaaaa, there is no one to kill.

If you don't give the average base capture player the ability to succeed and want to keep generating activity, no amount of new toys, eye melting graphics, and woke 21st century gaming genius will keep numbers in the MA. The sharks will eat everyone and whizz on their efforts like they do even today.

[Vraciu]

You....you....you guys.....you.....your....

<Munch>

Same old song.

It's easy to tell Hitech what he has to do, then all of you seem to have the same blind spot in not realizing terrains are built by players and not Hitech(HTC).

And you (pun intended) don’t see a problem with this(?).

It’s a bit like buying Monopoly or Axis and Allies and not having a board included.   

HTC is the expert on what is wanted/needed and how things work...I would think building new maps would be a cinch for them.   It should certainly be a priority given the current environment. 

[Shuffler]

Same old song.


And you (pun intended) don’t see a problem with this(?).

It’s a bit like buying Monopoly or Axis and Allies and not having a board included.   

AH had it's own terrain too. Monopoly is one board. We could all fly on one terrain over and over too.

[TequilaChaser]

Quote from: bustr on Today at 12:44:19 PM

You....you....you guys.....you.....your....

<Munch>

Same old song.

It's easy to tell Hitech what he has to do, then all of you seem to have the same blind spot in not realizing terrains are built by players and not Hitech(HTC).

And you (pun intended) don’t see a problem with this(?).

It’s a bit like buying Monopoly or Axis and Allies and not having a board included.   

HTC is the expert on what is wanted/needed and how things work...I would think building new maps would be a cinch for them.   It should certainly be a priority given the current environment. 

out of curiosity, why does it seem like you are trying to pick a fight with bustr, with all the insulting with "you, you, you, you, you, you,  you(pun intended), you this, you that, you what?, oh no you didn't, you crazy!..... stuff

every time I see bustr post something in any thread, the next post or 2 after bustr's post will be a post from you Vraciu with quoting bustr, yet editing the quote to include stuff like you,you,you  and Munch,  or SMH or some other off the wall scribble sort of attacking him in a way that is hard to understand ....

You have created some pretty cool looking skins, why not create/design the AH Community a cool and strategically sound for all 3 sides terrain

from all the time bustr ( and others ) put in in the Alpha testing and Beta Testing along with creating Maps(Terrains) on top of the Testing and Bug finding for both the Alpha/Beta testing of AH3 as well as the Terrains bustr has created just to get them to where HTC ( HT & Skuzzy ) give them the Thumbs Up and accepts them for Open Arena Melee play, I don't understand why you have chosen him to be your , hmm............... not sure what to call it.... your ankle humping pal, or your beoch slap buddy.... or just the person you feel like quoting and making quack crack post in response to whatever bustr might post or reply to a thread with.... but dang if you haven't been doing it for a pretty good length of time now

just curious as to what happened that got you started on this track of insults and "Quote Editing" a person's post, which I have never understood why people do that.....unless they think others will get a laugh out of it,  not realizing that it is having a reversed effect.....

[Bruv119]

Remove M3 resupply, keep c47 resup like lazer suggests but not for town buildings,
remove the dt command to add more fog of war,
lower switch time back to one hour,
smaller maps only,
drop buzzsaw,
less dusk/dawn time (that might have been done already everytime I logged in seems to be light.)
more incentives for playing / attending special events,  2 weeks free, random draws etc.   

thats for starters; 

secondary would be to look at enabling some F2P in matchplay, training, WWI, arenas.   
Earn enough perks or credits in those arenas to buy some time in the MA.

[bustr]

No Vriacu I don't see a problem with it. After the last two years of testing terrains to learn how this game works for small numbers of players. I find the problem is most of you only know what you want versus how the arena works and that relationship to players interacting with it. In the end that still forces it all on Hitech who as far as I can tell is the only other person who knows how the environment called the MA works in response to the functions that can be arranged on a frame work called a terrain. I'm hoping there will be some other terrains which will change my opinion.

You learn a lot in two years building MA terrains and observing the results specifically to learn how the frame work player interaction really functions. It took Hitech 20 years to create his environment, learning it by only playing on it is an incomplete understanding. And it takes time to learn it which I don't think you have ever been willing to invest. And you Vriacu have only taught us that you resort to internet idiocy when you cannot compete in a conversation with experience. It's common place with some in these forums when they don't want to compete with ideas supported by much more than what they want to happen or their feelings.

I wanted to understand how this game worked from nuts to soup so I built terrains and observed the results in the MA for the last two years. Best I can tell of yourself and others, you have gotten increasingly lazy over the last two years by issuing the same internet insults and attempts at peer shaming to shut down discourse you don't want to hear. While you try to ding Hitech if you can at any juncture until you think you can force him to do what you want.

There is nothing wrong with the foundational function of the MA environment other than Hitech has tilted the advantage to the sharks and game dominance by fighter combat. So the average player sits in tanks, manned guns, and wirbles. Try to restrict those any more than they are now to force them into the air, and they will cancel their subscriptions. A lot of them are only in the game becasue of the friends they have here, otherwise action from an average player level sucks in the MA. They do not feel like they can accomplish anything in the current environment which is a capture the flag arena. That feeling has gotten worse as the player numbers decreased and the ability to capture feilds for average players became almost zilch with out a hoard or 3am and 7 guys online.

Reduce the town down percentage and change the radar minimum to 200, more initiatives will take place by the average players sitting the action out every evening. It's easier right now to sit at a spawn battle and grouse about the old days than attempt to take a field that a fighter hoard will be waiting at for easy kills. Those hundreds of guys years ago were not in the MA to be fighter jocks, they were there to capture the flag in a safe group with friends or newbies getting their feet wet for the first time. If Hitech changes the MA to any of the ideas from this post's audience, the core problem will still exist. Aces High right now is one of the most brutal flight SIMMs on earth for the average recreational player becasue it has no functions setup to give average players a chance to win other than feeding themselves to the sharks. They don't ever win until the sharks logout off peak hours and by then, two guys are a base taking hoard with one guy in here complaining about not finding fights. That is one of the core problems to growing this game again that will keep it from happening.