2022 and Forward

[Volron]

turn off mouse command view and free fly

That's the very first thing I did when AH3 hit.  Mouse control is still not what AH2 did for me, despite tweaking it as much as I could.

[Eagler]

I think mouse flying should be a very small concern as most who fly flight sims will use a joystick..

The highway robbery prices for one we are seeing now can't last

Lazer is the only player I know who has mastered mouse fighter flying

Eagler

[oboe]

I think mouse flying should be a very small concern as most who fly flight sims will use a joystick..

The highway robbery prices for one we are seeing now can't last

Lazer is the only player I know who has mastered mouse fighter flying

Eagler

Probably true on both counts.  Although with Steam, we're getting exposed to 1000s of users, and the Recommended Hardware doesn't mention a joystick. 

Was wondering if the hardware costs nowadays actually work in AH3's favor - this is the least hardware intensive flight sim I fly.   I have mid-range 4 yr old system, so while more graphically advanced sims like IL-2 and DCS tax it to its limit, I can fly here with max refresh rates in VR, and 140+ fps in 1440p.   That could be a selling point in AH3's favor.

[The Fugitive]

I think mouse flying should be a very small concern as most who fly flight sims will use a joystick..

The highway robbery prices for one we are seeing now can't last

Lazer is the only player I know who has mastered mouse fighter flying

Eagler

Thats where you are wrong. I'd bet that less than 10% of the people who tried AH during the "Steam" release had a joystick. "gamers" try games all the time. They are use to mini joysticks on their playstation game controllers or old school "w,a,s,d,". Check in windows setting under "bluetooth and other controllers" . I dont know about yours, but all my controllers, warthog, CH throttle, and CH pedals come with a picture of a playstation type controller. Why? because that is what the vast majority of gamers use.

If your going to hook new players they have got to be able to compete with what they have, mice and game controllers. Just like moving from the free planes to a paid subscription they most likely will buy a joystick, but its not what they are going to start with. Thats why the default settings of the mouse must be setup to be able to fly right out of the box. The same goes for a recognized game controller mini joystick. They shouldnt have to try and figure out what to do to set it up, it should just work. If a new player spends 5 minutes trying to get off the ground with his mouse and keeps crashing because it is set too sensitive then they quit and move on to something else.

Getting started in the game should be setup to be as easy as possible, getting "good" is where the time and practice comes in.

[CptTrips]

Yeah.  They all did great work on videos.  We need that again but have a consolidated channel for people to subscribe to?  Something on YouTube "sanctioned" by HT that the Training Team could perhaps manage.  That way not just anyone can post to it.

 

Maybe just put it under HTC's Youtube channel.  Give a team lead the ability to upload vids like Spikes I think updates event stuff on the main page now.

[LCADolby]

I have problems with Dolby, but I have to say some of his videos I've seen are very professional.

Want to elaborate on that thought before I tell you to go whistle?

[Meatwad]

I am able to GV using WASD and the mouse and can get kills in it, but flying is an absolute no go

[Lazerr]

I am able to GV using WASD and the mouse and can get kills in it, but flying is an absolute no go

What is difficult about it for you?  I tried warthunder once and their mouse command mode sucks.  HT tried to duplicate it I believe, and it sucked just like warthunder.  If you have it on, disable it.

Also, make changes to your sensitivity, and invert axis as needed to make it work Iike a stick.

I roll the mouse down, and I get lift, the same movement you would from a stick.

I don't even look down at the keyboard as my rudder and flap buttons are close by, and I move that hand over to the keypad to look around.

I don't consider myself a top A2A maneuver master, but my aim and SA is good enough to keep me competitive.

[AKKuya]

I'm an idea guy.  I'm not a technical guy with all this software stuff.  I turn on the computer and click the icons and away I go.

I don't understand website design, video editing, and social media.  Just not my forte.

I can point things in a specific direction, bring different viewpoints together, and other people friendly issues.  I can translate information to the layman and interest specific groups through generalization.

As a CM, I have to absorb all the different viewpoints, suggestions, and complaints and respond in a tactful manner.  Draw the line at any established rules will be the harshest hopefully I ever have to do in a tactful way.

Life time of customer service in fast food, casino, retail, and airline does create the skills for tactful response.  At the same time, you do want to rant and rave afterwards.  Just being human.

There was a suggestion of some "leadership" in a previous post.  Great!  Are there anyone willing to step up?  Especially with a lot of free time.  Are there any suggestions for a player to coordinate efforts to a player led training/advertising team?

Something small and with time grow.

Are there players with the technical skill to handle the work load?  Players to handle small amounts of work and others to merge that work in a cohesive fashion?

This should be a community effort.   

[Volron]

What is difficult about it for you?  I tried warthunder once and their mouse command mode sucks.  HT tried to duplicate it I believe, and it sucked just like warthunder.  If you have it on, disable it.

Also, make changes to your sensitivity, and invert axis as needed to make it work Iike a stick.

I roll the mouse down, and I get lift, the same movement you would from a stick.

I don't even look down at the keyboard as my rudder and flap buttons are close by, and I move that hand over to the keypad to look around.

I don't consider myself a top A2A maneuver master, but my aim and SA is good enough to keep me competitive.

Thing is, despite the tweaking I cannot get the precision I had in AH2 that was default.  As I mentioned before, I have a rough time gunning from a bomber now than I did then, and I cannot get the same level of maneuverability out of my aircraft as I did then either.  Turning off stall limiter makes the aircraft squirrely as hell, which it was like this in AH2 as well though I could still fly.  So I kept the limiter on in AH2 and was still able to put up somewhat of a fight.  I just flat spin myself in AH3 with it off.

War Thunder's mouse flight is...oof.  I can agree, but this can be someone alleviated when using WASD in conjunction.  Still, AH2's mouse control was far superior to WT's, which is why I didn't spend a whole lot of time in WT (that and I got tired of my G5N being intercepted by F-86's and MiG-15's).

If HiTech brought back the mouse control ways of AH2, I'd be much more inclined to fly more.  It was very easy to use and get used too, and allowed me to actually put up a fight in a fighter.  Most importantly for me, it allowed me to accurately deal with interceptors.  Challenge could vouch that I wasn't an easy target, providing he remembers.

[CptTrips]

There was a suggestion of some "leadership" in a previous post.  Great!  Are there anyone willing to step up?  Especially with a lot of free time.  Are there any suggestions for a player to coordinate efforts to a player led training/advertising team?

I applaud your enthusiasm, Kuya.  I'll do your the courtesy of assuming you want honest feedback.

HT himself said he can't currently see clear ROI on advertising.  He said he is getting < 1% conversion on trials.  That could technically mean 0.0000001% for all we know.  And I wouldn't be surprised.

You can re-make training vids if you want.  If you just enjoy doing it then, have fun!  They will largely be duplicates of the tutorial vids others have already made.  Even most of the AHII vids are still applicable.  Not that much has changed as far as basic tutorials on view setup and take-off and such.

40,000 people downloaded the trial at the Steam launch and HT saw < 1% conversion.  Possibly WAY, WAY less than 1%; we don't know the exact number. 

I think there are fundamental problems with the game itself that make it unappealing to anyone you might manage to pull in with your videos.  The proof is in the conversion rate HT saw after being exposed to 40,000 eye-balls (Way more than I suspect you will get video views). 

Maybe it's the graphics, maybe the initial UI look, maybe control setup, maybe lack of initial in-game tutorials, maybe the monetization model.  No one knows for certain.  We all have theories. 

Regardless, there are probably code changes of some type needed to be made to the game to make it more appealing to people who download the trial.  Until HT can find the secret sauce to  raise the average conversion rate to > 1% (I'd say at least to 3-5%) then I would carefully weigh if it is really worth your time and others to crowd source advertising that will apparently fall on unimpressed eyes.  Code changes are beyond our control unless parts are open sourced.

Unless you just want to for fun not expecting it to make any difference.    "Waste of time" doesn't apply if you are just doing something for amusement. 

Good luck.

 

[Meatwad]

What is difficult about it for you?  I tried warthunder once and their mouse command mode sucks.  HT tried to duplicate it I believe, and it sucked just like warthunder.  If you have it on, disable it.

Also, make changes to your sensitivity, and invert axis as needed to make it work Iike a stick.

I roll the mouse down, and I get lift, the same movement you would from a stick.

I don't even look down at the keyboard as my rudder and flap buttons are close by, and I move that hand over to the keypad to look around.

I don't consider myself a top A2A maneuver master, but my aim and SA is good enough to keep me competitive.

For casual GVing, its fine for me. I dont have the mouse inverted so up is up, down is down, etc. Now if I go into a tank town type area where there are GV's all over the place, then using a stick will  have an advantage over using the mouse, otherwise its endless scrolling the mouse trying to find the enemy, and then a lot of dying in the process

[Molsman]

There are many reasons that older players have dropped their subscriptions (such as myself) and they are not HT s fault.

Society changes.  Many such as myself were intrigued by the history of WWII.  Our Fathers served during WWII.  When we were younger we were enamored with that era because of what our parents went through during that time.  We grew up on movies such as flying leathernecks' etc.  It made us curious.  Our Father would take us to the Youngstown Airport just to watch Airliners and Fighter Jets take off at the airport.  Back at that time the Airlines were prop driven planes with companies such as Capital Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and TWA were flying regular flights to and from the Airport.  The ones we really liked to see were the landings and take offs of the Jets from the Fighter Group that was based at the Airport.  We saw a generation of fighter technology change from F-86 to the Voodoo, and the Delta Dart Fighters.  We also saw many "Flying Boxcars" land and take off with Personnel and supplies for the group.  It influenced a dream in us of that generation.

When flight sims became popular in the early 80s' we were all in!  We were in our 30s' by then and we couldn't get enough of it!  It was a dream come true!  Flight Sims were popular then.  We could virtually fly anything we wanted!  However, flight sims were popular for a time (boxed Sims) but they take a great deal of finances to produce.  They were expensive to say the least and the developers were hard pressed to make a profit from them if they could at all.  Then for me and many others, Air Warrior was introduced.  Dream come true!  Fighting in the virtual skies with players from all over the world at any time of the day.  The History is what intrigued us and still does to this day of those of us from my generation.

I've quit and come back at least twice in my participation.  What discourages older players from staying is the low participation.  In the 80s', 90's and early 2000s' there were many, many more participants then there are today.  If one, such as myself does resubscribe we hoped the zeal of the earlier era of MMOGs' was there. We soon become disappointed because of the lack of players which translated to us as a loss of history.  The genre now has turned into an instant gratification sim....... a point and click game.  My favorite, the Scenarios have fallen from 300 plus participants to, if we're lucky 50 players.  Thus maps have had to be smaller, tactics are limited and attacks have to made in a direction that could easily be seen and much easier to defend.  Brooke and the other CMs have done a lot of work for a long time to make a Scenario an event.  Sadly now it has become a skirmish only limited by the amount of players that participate.  We used to see hundreds of Bombers in the virtual skies as well as defending Fighters and escorting Fighters.  I don't have to tell you what it has degenerated into now.  Not the CMS fault at all, it's the Community at large.

So......as an older participant, one of three generations that could have played since I entered the virtual skies there is a general lack of interest.

Now what could HT do?  The game already has more then enough fighters and bombers modeled, as well as gvs!  And some are never used! This takes into consideration that most vehicles and aircraft were voted on to be included!  The Players themselves had a hand in selecting what should be included.  It was a lot of work to model these aircraft and vehicles!  And so what.  It was a waste of time. I don't know what HT could be thinking.  I don't know what HT has in mind.  There is everything in this game now one could want!  Why bother to spend time and money for no gain?  It doesn't make sense.

So to me it's today's society.  Different generations.  No one right or no one wrong.  Time passes on. The game still has the tools.  These are some of the reasons why I stopped participating.

Time passes on and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  The state of the game has passed me by.  That is why I no longer wish to participate.  My fault for being so old 

  Very Well said Hajo I could of not said it better myself. Air Warrior was my first game then did Mod Job for them and was taught by Spiffy and Flo then when air warrior died we all moved over to Aces High. I spent the first few years there then left due to work and came back around 2009 and and spent almost another 10 years there met a lot of people online and I person. Held roles as a CM and Ava staff member. I may come back soon miss flying with some people but who knows when the Crazy8s will return but I do know I will not fly as Molsman anymore

Salute Dale for all the work you do and have done over these years

[Molsman]

What is difficult about it for you?  I tried warthunder once and their mouse command mode sucks.  HT tried to duplicate it I believe, and it sucked just like warthunder.  If you have it on, disable it.

Also, make changes to your sensitivity, and invert axis as needed to make it work Iike a stick.

I roll the mouse down, and I get lift, the same movement you would from a stick.

I don't even look down at the keyboard as my rudder and flap buttons are close by, and I move that hand over to the keypad to look around.

I don't consider myself a top A2A maneuver master, but my aim and SA is good enough to keep me competitive.

I still play WT with nothing but a mouse these days I found it harder to set up joysticks and rudders there.   But if I return to aces I will be a mouse flyer. There was one guy in JG-11 that only used a mouse to play and he was pretty darn good I am drawing a blank on his name right now but met him In person

[Eagler]

Kids these days seem happier with first person shooters where they can see heads explode in their scopes, the more gruesome the better..

They don't  have the patience nor the attention span to learn a game like AH IMO

And their fragile egos can't handle the repeated buttocks whooping it takes in this game to get slightly decent at it..

Not sure what HT can do about that...

Eagler