Just checking but you do realize there is a free for all area?
HiTech
HiTech, the Free For All (FFE) area presently available isn't anything remotely like the furball lake experientially. Not-the-least-of-which weirdness is that when you mix human and AI together the humans apparently tend to collaborate against the AI.
Referring back to your earlier point about population, at some stage and for a brief period of AH3 you did have the now FFE (it's PT Corner Spikes) air-spawnable with no AI. Spontaneously it was populated, players started a thread extolling its virtues, how fun it was, the quality of the flying and a good-quality YouTube video was immediately published. You know one of those free and independent promotionals which might make prospective players who were probably watching aviation-related videos to think: "Ooooh, I'd be good at that and would like to try it". Numbers and interest was sufficient to suggest that somewhere like that would probably be a populated arena for at least some of the 24-hour cycle. Besides what does it matter if it didn't / doesn't have high numbers, neither does the TA.
As CptTrips mentioned earlier:
Working out better user experiences and optimizing workflows...
Consider the disposition of the online arenas from the perspective of a new and unindoctrinated player. Due to the present architecture - to have human interaction, you're realistically thrown into the late-war MA of old. That's not to say the ACM is of an intimidating high-level, it's rather the nature of arena itself. It's populated by long-experienced players who are highly attuned to risk assessment, usually fly competitive aircraft in competitive ways, often have long-standing squadmates or wingmen who know exactly how to utilise the arena's facilities to minimise their risk and maximise their danger to an extent new players are incapable of doing or knowing. Your ACM has to be very good to fly (initially) alone and not get swarmed endlessly by vets competing with each other to add a kill to their score. Where can prospective players acquire this? The answer is nowhere in AH3.
There's a big gap between staying engaged / interested long enough to find it a survivable challenge to build enough skill to become a steady subscriber.
Certainly the question of free online combat versus paying for a valid service should be addressed. The old DA / Furball lake (with a proportion of population something like 10%/90% split respectively),
was a paid arena and I think that's fair enough. The present MPA is a bit schitzo because a good proportion of new / prospective players go there, but they're hardly equipped to duel. They mill around the FFA fighting the AI which is neither representative nor encouraging. There is no help there, official or otherwise. Neither can you put the AI at a fixed level to satisfy both newcomers and experienced players. It is neither fish nor fowl. There is definately a place for the AI you have devised. I'm not sure that is it. Regardless it is for you to strike the business model balance between 'freeloaders' and 'gateway drug' to facilitate players becoming subscribers. None of us have useful data to help in that regard.
A separate ideation thread ought to be made for what an 'ideal' layout might be if you wanted to have that discussion. Some (but not all
) of Violator's suggestions have merit. We know that because we did some of those experiments already in private arenas. Of course that's all additional work. An economical first and easy experiment would be to either re-enable the fields at A1, A2 and A3 or as Dolby suggests reboot the old DA as it was, obviously announce the change, and see if a community of players could be recultivated who are not overly fixated with MA score and survival at all costs. That's only engaging to those who've already acquired ACM and AH experience.
Well that's my 50 cents and our lockdown is drawing to a close. Must get back to the potentially paying project work...
