Problems and Solutions for the Main Arena:

[eskimo2]

Thanks Sabre,
I should make it clear that most of the Strat concepts expressed in this post were originally concieved by Sabre.

eskimo

[Raubvogel]

Those are some well thought-out ideas Eskimo. There is a definite decrease on the effect strat targets have on the MA environment. It's basically become a waste of time to attack strategic targets. It's easier to just capture fields and skip the strat. I'd like to see field capture made tougher and strategic targets have more effect on a country's war-making capabilities.

[AKDejaVu]

Originally posted by eskimo2
The Problem:
The MA is becoming boring/frustrating.  (See Hangtime's Thread)
More often than not, giant furballs and  gang-bangs are all that can be found in the MA.
Missing are organization, strat, surprise and options.

I have seen more furballing now than I have ever seen before.  I've also seen more serious attacks/strat being used than I have ever seen before.  If I don't like the situation where I'm flying... I relocate.

The one thing bothering me about the furballs right now is that they aren't really furballs.  There aren't 10's - 20's of aircraft engaging each other... there's 3 planes engaging 10 enemies on each side of the "front" with maybe 2 in the middle... and then 10 more sitting back just in case one makes it through.

I've found that as a result of that completely absurd mentallity (wether you furball or not)... things can be much better elsewhere.  Now, people know the core mentality and how to circumvent it.  I find it a challenge to attempt thwarting their efforts.  Trying to predict what the enemy is planning and stopping it is a challenge in and of itself.  I've found a handfull of likeminded people in the MA that seem to think the same thing.. cause they are usually in the same area.  Basically, I make my own fun in the MA and can always find an enemy willing to oblidge me.  Its just that not every enemy chooses to do so.

Strat;
With the last major release (1.08) of Aces High, strat was drastically changed.
Strat targets now rebuild automatically (Via trains) and can be rebuilt by players (Cargo Sorties).
Instead of increasing player organization and cooperation by requiring greater teamwork to achieve strategic goals, strategic missions have been altogether abandoned.

Strat has also changed to allow a small group of players to easily capture a field simply by destroying the town.  It works both ways.

I've not seen this many captures of heavily defended fields in some time.

Most players are not willing to participate in a difficult raid, that even if successful will be rebuilt before they get home, giving them no chance to reap the rewards of their hard work by implementing follow-up raids.

I have zero sympathy here.  Its called coordination.  Simply because you complete one mission, it is felt there should be an immediate reward (on your next mission).  Sorry.. I don't agree.

Before 1.08, I personally would knock down the HQ several times a week.  Now, I can't even remember the last time anyone's HQ went down.  As a result, radar-down sneak captures are gone.

And knocking down HQ several times a week is a better option?  I can't help but detect a heavily skewed perspective here.

Small Fronts, Large Player-Base, Limited Options;
With increasing numbers of players in the MA, all-too-often many players find themselves looking for something to do other than participate in the big furball or gang-bang.  A persistent base of players who are ready to up as soon as they realize that something different is going on means that raids are intercepted more often.  When a countries front line is down to 4 or less front line bases, and there are 300+ players in the arena, finding or starting a "fresh fight" can be impossible.

I really don't get the complaint here.  Is there a map where you really have this option without actually being down to 4 or less bases?  Lake Uterus is the only one that seems close, and that's narrowing it to 5 bases.  The rest, however, are much more expansive.

Radar, Too Much Information!
Get together 20 countrymen with a base capture objective, climb to 15K, fly 50+ miles to your target, and meet 20 co-alt+ enemy...  
Why plan?  Why organize?  Well-planned missions fail too often because the enemy has too much warning.

A well planned mission would have escorts helping you out.  Basically, you want to be able to aproach a field with a group of bombers undetected.  I find the notion quite silly.

Besides, its somewhat counterproductive to argue that too many people are furballing AND too many people are preparing to intercept attacks at 20k in the same thread.  

Nothing kills the incentive to organize like an enemy informed of your actions!

On the same theme.. nothing kills incentive like having no idea what you are hopping into.  The same tools enabling the defenders to intercept attacks are being used to plan missions.  Many people choose to participate based on the "cake walk" factor.  You are removing that with your radar statement.

Personally, I avoid planned missions often because I know that they are doomed.
If they were successful more often, I would participate more often.
To be successful, the enemy shouldn't know what is going on the instant 25 P-47s spawn on their own runway.  When I see a big red bar appear opposite an empty friendly base, I have a pretty good idea what is going to happen in 15 to 20 minutes.  I am probably going to get myself killed on my current sortie well before they get to their target.  This means that I will have plenty of time to spawn, climb to alt and intercept them, or at least sneak out and hunt down their goon.

Yet so many are successful.  You are generating a theme here.  For some reason, your tone suggests that planned missions should all be successful and that the current MA is not accomodating to that belief.

Nothing is guaranteed.  Taking 40 players along should not exclussively ensure anything.  Strat has been added that both enables the attackers and the defenders to do many things.  It seems neither side wants to completely acknowledge that... nor utilize it.

Giving Away the Locations of CVs.
It's hard to imagine that the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor would have gone so well had a trigger happy IJN pilot launched an hour early and attacked Pearl Harbor by himself.  The same principle works in the MA.

Come up with a solution that doesn't involve napolean dictating exactly when people can or can't fly from a carrier... and exactly where that carrier is going.

If player feel that organized missions are too likely to be intercepted or well-defended against, or sneak captures are too unlikely to be successful, and strat targets are a waste of time, what are they to do?  Join in the furball... or join in the gang-bang.

Come up with a way where its easier for EVERYONE to succede in the MA.  Please.

Truth be told... its only possible to do that for half of them.

To be continued...

[AKDejaVu]

Solutions:
Strat;
Instead of trains and trucks fixing strat targets and bases, their absence should degrade the strat target or base.
If a strat target does not receive a train for X amount of time, it goes down in production.  Perhaps no trains arriving at a city for 45 minutes; city goes down 20%.   For each additional 15 minutes without trains, city goes down another 20%.  Players can bring in supply C-47s to make up for missing trains by keeping city from going down further, but, C-47s WOULD NOT REBUILD STRAT TARGETS!).

I like the idea of convoy destruction having a affect on the base.  So long as there is some notification that it is occuring... maybe on a country alert or something.  People should know that convoys have not been arriving at a base.  It would be too easy for an ostwind to sit on the tracks nailing anything that aproaches without being observed.

If an airbase does not receive a convoy for X amount of time, it's fuel, ammo, troops and radar drop or become disabled (partially, for each missing convoy).

Excellent idea.  Right now the convoys are virtually ignored... by both offense and defense.

The only worry or consideration I have is that this is not something that should be able to be denied in secrecy.  If a convoy is destroyed... it needs to be broadcast.

Radar:
Changing a few aspects about the current radar status, could have a great impact on how the game is played.
#1. Abolish Enemy-Bar-Dar below 500 feet. Encourage sneak raids.  Sneak raids would mean that players would have interesting options 99% of the time.

I totally agree.  I do think that there should be some indication, however, when you are VERY near to a base.  I seriously doubt any base was bombed in complete secrecy.

4 guys, with discipline, could capture an enemy base 100+ miles in enemy territory.

I don't necessarily think this is a good thing... see above.
 

#2.  Abolish Enemy-Bar-Dar in enemy territory.  No dots or bars 25 miles beyond friendly bases.  As stated above, organized missions could at least get to within 25 miles of an enemy base before the enemy is warned Via radar.  Enemy would still get a 5+ minute warning, enough time to oppose, but not always en-mass.

5 minutes is not enough time to oppose.  Find a single plane that can climb to 20k in 5 minutes.  AH does not have people patrolling.  We do not have people joyous at the idea of flying for 1000 hours in order to get 2 kills.  People just won't be sitting around waiting for this to happen.  Right now there are indicators, and there still aren't that many people that get up to alt to intecept attacks.  The majority of organized attacks I've seen faced perhaps 2 defenders at alt... seldomely more.

HTC, if you want to see more organization in the MA, give organized players a chance to be successful more often.

Your proposals really are more likely to make disorganization more successful.  Making things easier is not the way to improve skills.

Hold Flight on Aircraft Carriers.
Sneaking an aircraft carrier into attack position, behind the front line, is nearly pointless because someone always launches from it while it is en route and gives away its position.  If the commander of the CV could "Hold Flight", organized CV missions would take place often.  Players would have confidence in the mission and sign up because they would know that the enemy would not have warning before the mission starts.  Everyone who recognizes the value of the CV's location would become unified in their efforts.

Here is a major fallacy.  Wouldn't no dar outside of 25 miles from a base make this a moot point?  Or are you arguing that people should only be able to launch from a CV when it is right next to an enemy base... somewhere a CV would not historically have been.  You want a change to promote completely a-historical behavior, citing other a-historical behavior as a reason.

Ironic.

Effect on Bomber Use:
Replacing the value of strat targets would increase the use of bombers in Aces High.
Reducing the effectiveness of radar would also mean that slow-climbing bombers would stand a better chance of making it to target at lower altitudes, thereby increasing the use of bombers in the MA.  I don't know why, but I have always felt that HTC has been looking for ways to make bombers more relevant and used in Aces High.

Bombers need to be recognized for what they were... instruments.  They won/captured absolutely nothing on their own.  They denied, diminished and weakened things... they did not defeat them.

The bombers in AH have capabilities far exceeding those in real life.  There have been so many concessions for the sake of gameplay that they have become quite silly in general.

If you are going to make it more difficult to detect bombers, you need to make it more difficult to fly them, gun from them and to destroy targets with them.  You need to make targets more vague and have less of an obvious tactical impact.  Remove the obvious/consistant cause and effect syndrome.

Then... you can start to argue how unfair things are for bomber pilots.

In general, incentive needs to be given for the organization of players in any sized group.  When players find success by working together in small groups, they will develop greater knowledge, skills, and incentive to work in larger groups.

Incentive needs to be given to gang-bangs?  Really?  After all.. you argue that attacks should be harder to see coming.  You argue that bombers should have more of an impact.  You argue that defenders are too well equiped.  You are basically arguing that anyone who organizes a large mission should have everything in place to ENSURE it is successfull.

I've got news for you... large missions are not what needs to be promoted in the MA.  Common sense is.  Right now that is not being used by either furballers or mission planners... or its so rare that we seldomely notice the few times it is used.

"OK.. now lets get the next base!" is not planning and strategy.  All of your country being successfull on one front, while losing horribly on the other is not what needs to be promoted.

There simply needs to be more balance.  More incentive to hold your home land and to realize that losing it is not an acceptable situation since you captured a little of someone else's.

The above ideas would make Aces High more interesting, less predictable, create greater options, and promote teamwork among players.

You want to slap a guarantee on organized mission success, but you feel it would be less predictable?

I strongly disagree

Balance... for defense and offense.  Balance for furballers and strat.  Balance.  Balance. Balance.

AKDejaVu

[pbirmingham]

"Who flies the C-47s anyway?  Strat guys, or furballers?"

Both.  I've flown '47s to fields that were damaged.

"Why does everything need to be quickly un-done?"

Why is it important that the effects last a long time?

"What's more important; having a game that involves complex and dynamic strategy and sometimes leaves a country deprived of resources, or one that is stagnant?"

Having fun is most important.  Whether the strategy is stable or chaotic, matters much less.

"How does losing radar on occasion hurt furballs?  If you have been furballing between A-1 and A-43 for the past 2 hours, and the radar goes down, why would you expect not to find the same furball, in approximately the same place, on your next 7 sorties?"

I see.  And of course, nobody's going to fly a 30K Lanc over one of the bases while the radar is down and pork the FH's, either, right?

"If the enemy captures some of your bases while the dar is down, what do you care?  Your furball is still taking place, right?"

This would be true if capture was a surgical operation that had no other effect than the base changing hands.  We both know that the real situation is different, as it is common to strike at  fields near the object of a capture attempt, to make defense that much harder.
I enjoy a little bit of everything, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to step outside the "war" and just put some lead in some bogies.  A lot of people would, inadvertently or otherwise, make that much more difficult, because the more mischief that 25K Lanc can wreak, the more often I'll be forced to abandon whatever I'd hoped to do and attempt to stop it.

Again, any of these changes will enhance some peoples' style of play at the expense of others'.  If you will quit believing that what you are asking for costs nothing to anybody else, this discussion will be much more fruitful.  Right now, though, you're trying to convince me that your suggestions don't change anything I should care about.

[Löwe]

Eskimo.
Great ideas, and your time spent explaining them is greatly appreciated. I have to dissagree the Hold Flight option.
I am pretty new to AH being a Warbirds retread, but too many times I've seen people move the CVs way too close to the enemy shore line.
I do understand there are reasons for this like shelling the enemy bases, or launching landing craft, however when your trying to have a squad meet with a CV based USN squad, it gets old having the CVs right off the enemy coastline, you end up constanly looking for another place to land.  To be honest when we launch froma CV miles out to sea, it never occured to me we were messing somebodys sneak attack up. Tuning the radar down a bit might help here. At times it seems this games almost to the point where you need a High Command, and orders for each squad, so ya dont pee on somebodys parade.

[Zigrat]

after reading akdejavus thread i agree that if the radar settings were implimented the idea for a "hold flight" on the carrier becomes a poor one. if a carrier is within 50 miles of landfall, it shoud not be masked. sneak attacks form carriers are a good idea (ie if teh plane takes off from 200 miles away the enemy should not see the instant bar dar). But if you wanna sneak it up to 10 miles offshore, taht should be tougher... they could even spot it with mk 1 eyeball.

i think bar radar should work like minesweeper. bear with me on this. there should be a radio tower at each field, and mabye take a 500 lb egg to kill it. taht radio tower gives bar radar coverage in a 9 grid sector. picture the sector of the field being the 5 on thkeypad... 1-9 would eb covered by bar radar. this would still permit up to a 50 mile range in bar dar, but would allow for activity (such as the afore mentioned carrier raid) to form up properly. if you nkock out the tower, bar dar is gone for 1/2 hour in those sectors, unless they are overlapped by another tower that is still up.

i have to say i really love the idea of degredation via lack of resupply. right now attacking convoys is worthless.

[Soda]

The MA has really lost my interest lately because of the eternal furballing (which for some is the point of the game).  Honestly I liked the ndisles map though because it gave people a place to furball (on the central island) while leaving most of the strat stuff around the edges for the other types of players.  Unfortunately that map doesn't seem to work well in that fashion with the number of people online these days at prime time.

If I were to throw some ideas out for discussion:

1) Change the dar model... Make it altitude dependant with no hard floor for detection range.  Fly low results in shorter detection range (<12miles?), fly high, longer detection range (50miles), fly extremely high-very long detection range (100 miles).  Dots at half the detection, otherwise only bar.  This helps the low guys make sneaks and helps defense to give time to scramble against the really high strato-guys too.

2) Don't allow strat target to rebuild with resupply.  Give the bomber guys something worthwhile to hit.  Still allow it at fields though, it's what allows furballs to continue for the likes of Laz, et al.  Few things are quite as fun as trying to fly a supply goon into a contested field... I respect guys who can pull that off.

3) Take out "salvo 1".  Make bombers drop the entire string in 1 go.  No more pickle bombing.  Make the ENTIRE strat target tile accept damage though, not picking off individual buildings.  That way bombers will still be JUST as effective against strat targets. Hitting pin-point targets is the reason for jabo not our current type of high altitude laser bombing.  You could still use bombers to hit airfields, but you better line up a number of targets in one pass... no more pickle bombing a whole airfield down from 30K in an Lanc.

4) Allow troop LVT's to spawn from CV's further off shore.  Part of the problem with CV ops is that the CV has to get so damn close to shore to be effective.  Once close then the enemy can just shell it with shore guns or use Typhoons and rockets to attack it at 500ft, ack-be-damned.  Having it further from shore also helps you protect it since enemy planes have to fight a longer distance to get to it.  If you want to run an LVT invasion though with the LVTA(4) you'll have to get close, like now.  As it is, CV's are better defensive weapons than offensive ones and tend to get used that way.

4) Change the war-winning rewards.  Part of the problem with the current system is that it awards 20 points to the winner.. barely worth actually finishing off anyone.   How often is it actually 1 big guy pounding on 2 little ones, not often from my experience, usually it is 2 big guys picking on 1 little one... so here goes:

Look at the dynamics of it, the first place guy has no real incentive to win (20 perks, who cares) as he can get more by simply continuing to vulch/gangbang/milkruns.  The second place guy doesn't really care to win since he can get more points from the vulch/gangbang/milkruns and the extra 20 points is almost worthless.  The 3rd place guy doesn't have a chance... he just takes it on the nose.  The way to change this would be to make the second place guy want to become the first place guy... badly... and thus maybe give the third place guy a chance to get back into the action.

I might be labelled a heretic, but 150 perks for first... 0 for 3rd and -50 for 2nd.  The 1st place guy is fighting for something worthwhile, 150 perks, the 3rd place guy fighting for pride, and the 2nd place guy fighting to not be #2.



-Soda

[Zigrat]

soda displays his true genius

[Critter]

Then why not just make two arenas, one for furballing, and one for strat.


Wait... isn't that what the dueling arena is? A big furball room?

[Hangtime]

Great post Eskimo..

I don't see furballing as a threatend pastime and i don't think the typical furballer is anywhere near endangered species status. It's certain that the obverse is true for the strat guys.

I do think that strat has suffered quite a bit in the last few releases, the current MA has strat reduced to hokieness in the extreme and most of these proposals amplify the good parts of the latest strat model changes and give us a chance to utilize the existing new strat tools to more effect.

postive constructive critisism of the current strat model and proposals for implementation are a far more productive course of action that the route I embarked on... i applaud this effort by eskimo and sabre, and the thoughtful observations by others on its relative merits... good and bad.

Nice work... hope HTC takes notice.

[palef]

Originally posted by faminz
My main change would be (in agreement with eskimo) the ability to sneak under the radar. This was always possible in Air Warrior, below 200' was 'under the dar' and I like the 500' idea.

I actually assumed it was operating like that to start with but was  quickly disabused of THAT!

secondly, as I have previously posted, I would like to see local radar from specific planes. ie: a radar operator position in certain planes (mossie, Ju-88 and Me110). This should be limited in range, not dependent on the country radar and show altitude.

In conjunction with knocking out the country radar these planes would then be startegically used to patrol the 'borders' and locate otherwise unseeable attacks.

But the under the dar option must definitely be added asap.

What He said. Nice thread Eskimo.

Palef

[eskimo2]

Good discussion going on here guys.
There's almost too much to comment on.
I especially like the idea of a warning going off when a base is under attack.  Someone once suggested an air-raid siren.
As far the CV Hold Flight concept goes, I think that this is the least important idea originally expressed in my post.  I do, however, think that it's implementation would increase carrier-born missions.  I am also not suggesting that the option only be used to drive the CV right up to the beachfront.  Missions could be launched at any range that the mission planner chooses.  The Idea is to get folks to launch an attack together.  Also keep in mind that the "Hold Flight" option would not necessarily be in place at all times, only when someone is working toward organizing and recruiting for a mission.  Most of the time, CV use would be exactly as it is now.      
Basically what I am advocating for in my post is for Strategy to be re-introduced back into Aces High and that organized missions get a chance to "get off the ground and under-way" before the enemy is warned.

It seems that HTC put a lot of effort into creating Strat Targets and a complex Strat System that has become largely ignored, it's just my guess, but I think that they are a bit disappointed as to how simple Aces High has become.  I think my ideas show how strat can become relevant again.

It seems that HTC put a lot of effort into creating the Mission Planner as well, it's just my guess, but I think that they are a bit disappointed that it is not used more often.  I think my ideas show some of the problems with missions and what it will take to make them a bigger part of the game.  I really don't think that organized missions will be successful 100% (or anywhere near that) of the time if what I suggest is implemented, nor do I see how anyone could honestly think that these ideas would make that much of a difference.  I am just trying to show how missions could be better, and as a result, used more often.

eskimo

[popeye]

Not sure if Hold Flight for the CV is a good idea, but....

Maybe it could be implemented with the Mission Planner.  Set up a mission with the CV as the base, and when (some number of) players sign on to the mission, Hold Flight is enabled, and the misison planner has control of the CV.  No planes could launch until the first flight of the mission does.  If too many players bail out of the mission before it launches, Hold Flight would be disabled, and the mission planner loses control of the CV.  A time limit could be added so that a mission launch time couldn't be more than (some number of) minutes from the current time.

This would enable a mission planner to have control of the CV for a limited time, as long as he has the support of some minimum number of players.

[lazs2]

" Laz, put down the pipe. Real war=Capture the flag. I was not talking of the content of the war, I was speaking of the GOAL of war.


__________________
VMF-323 ~DEATH RATTLERS~ MAG-33
VMF-323 Website
MAG-33 Information
German "Black Widow"
"Mid-life" is when you go to the doctor and you
realize you are now so old, you have to pay
someone to look at you naked.
"

ripsnore.... Ok,  we will let you have all the "goals" you feel would make you happy in AH if I can have all the "content" that I think will make me happy in AH.   Fair enough?
lazs