Ack lethality and undefended bases

[AKDejaVu]

The large map has presented people with lots of places to "attack" bases where the enemy aren't.  The tools are in place to know exactly what fields are undefended.  The end result is a rather large amount of milkrunning.

A while ago, people were complaining that ack was much more lethal against fast moving aircraft than slow moving planes.  The solution... make it less lethal against the faster aircraft.  

A while ago, people were comlaining that ack was making it tough to attack a base because it was too accurate.  The solution... dumb down ack so that any minigun equiped plane could render a base without ack all by itself.

Now we are left in an environment where a base can be captured by taking down 3 ack and leveling a town that is often closer to a spawn point than it is to a vehicle hangar.

The question becomes... why is AH catering to the land grab regime?  Why would HTC want an arena where the main goal was to avoid other pilots?  Why is there a situation where the best defense is simply to ignore the offense?

I see this as a problem.  I see this as a root cause for most of the complaints regarding this map.  Milkrunning is simply too easy and its too appealing.

So how do you fix a problem that such a large % of the arena is contributing too?

I think that ACK accuracy should be turned up.  Someone's first instinct should not be to dive in on a runway with 8 ack up knowing they'll most likely survive as long as they turn a bit.

I don't think that remote capture of a field should be possible (only get the town with no reason to get anything at the field).

I think that a field should have some kind of artillery available to defend against incoming armor.

I simply think there should be some reward for defending as well as attacking a field.

AKDejaVu

[Apar]

And how you expect to reset this map at all if you make base capture more difficult, with 1000 player raids????

Even 20+ player missions are not appealing to me anymore, because your lucky if you get to kill 1 ack or 1 base structure. The chance of getting a kill on those missions is almost zero.

If the bases are hardened that will only lead to higher No's required for the missions, making it only worse IMHO.

The milk running with this large map is not a result of the base hardness but a result of the No of bases and how the fronts are distributed over the map.

Further more I would rather go for a 384X384 map with the current No's of AH players. 512X512 is just too large at the moment. It is just undefendable.

[AKDejaVu]

I don't know... but I don't think the anwer is to push everyone towards undefended bases.

AKDejaVu

[Soulyss]

I dunno if anything has been changed ack wise but it sure SEEMS nastier lately.  My plane just must be a ack magnet because whenever I get near the stuff I get hit lately.  I got blown outta the sky by 88mm this morning, that hasn't happened to me in months, usually I just weave a little or ignore it completely and go about my bussiness but it blasted my F6F out from under me in a heart beat a few hours ago.

[Midnight]

I wish a knew a solution for this one DeJa...

Last week, the 412th had a grand ole' time upping 3 or 4 Mustangs, an A20 or 2 and a C47. I think in less than an hour we had captured like 4 or 5 bases, all of which were mostly undefended. Sure there was the occasional last second Spit, but with 4 P-51Ds Booming and Zooming, there was not much chance for the Spit to stop us.

In any event, our goal was to try and get a fight going, but it just wasn't happening. In a last attempt to stir the pot, we went to the main knight base (was the one next to HQ at the bottom of the map) and ended up taking it as well, still with very little resistance.

Just when I was about to give up and log off, the knights decided to wake up. We went from having no opposition to being absolutely swarmed with endless waves of incoming fighters and bombers.

Long story short, there seems to be very little in the way of balanced fights. It's either no fight at all, or a fight that is just unwinnable due to major number differences.

First we were the gang-bangers, having 6 or so against 2 or 3. Then we were the bangies, having 20+ all over us.

[Drunky]

Turn the ack lethality up, leave the city where it is but move the maproom back on the base

The city still needs to be down to effect the capture but now the troops must hit the maproom through all the base ack

Just a suggestion:D

[Yippee38]

Ack does seem more accurate than it has been in the past.

[CavemanJ]

Originally posted by AKDejaVu
Now we are left in an environment where a base can be captured by taking down 3 ack and leveling a town that is often closer to a spawn point than it is to a vehicle hangar.



I think that ACK accuracy should be turned up.  Someone's first instinct should not be to dive in on a runway with 8 ack up knowing they'll most likely survive as long as they turn a bit.

Wondered when the proximity of GV spawns was going to come up and who would bring it up.  They're great when yer the attacker, a royal pain when yer the defense.  Prime example: the fight over A90 that went on most the day on Tuesday (or was it yesterday? I forget).  Yer lookin the wrong way if ya want to blame the spawn points.  Some of them are alot of fun and/or a challenging drive.  Others you can spawn an osti and M3 and never start yer engines to get the capture.


As for the ack... let it be.  I can't for the life of me see how people are deacking a field all by themselves and flying away undamaged.  I can't do it.  Used to I'd take a P38, hit any size base, and wipe out the ack.  Then they were changed (1.03 I think?) and haven't been able to do it since.

As Midnight mentioned the 412th went on a land grab the other night.  I was flying the Havoc, and was the first to dive into the town and walk eggs across it, killing all the guns and making it safe for everyone else to approach it.  In every pass I took multiple hits, and most times lost something from my aircraft: aileron, engine oil, vator, rudder, whatever.  One time had an engine shot completely out.  Ain't nothin wrong with the acks.

[gatso]

Ack does seem more accurate than it has been in the past.

Where the hell are you flying????  Base ack is easy to take down now... done a whole medium field 3 or 4 times now without a ping. Might be my incredible skill (unlikely)... ack seems to fire at same rate but looks to have dispersion a' la ostie guns but with dispersion maybe increased a bit.  No bad thing IMHO. You don't defend a base... you loose it. What's the problem with that?

Gatso

[majic]

Interesting idea, but IMO, it would just lead to a harder time taking those undefended bases.  I like everything about the AK map except for the size (i.e.- number of bases).  I don't think anyone could have forseen what the new, larger map would bring in the way of fighting.  I believe what is needed is a 512X512 map with a smaller landmass, but the same base density.  Perhaps, the AK Desert map can be retooled.  (I have played around with the editor and appreciate how much work it can be, don't think the work goes unappreciated guys.)

[AKDejaVu]

I don't know if making base capture more difficult is the situation.  I do believe that things should not be as easy as they are for the attackers right now.

I believe this is always going to be an issue as long as base capture is the sole means to advance a front.  Right now, the easiest base capture is an undefended field.  The best place to be is where others aren't.  That is the fundamental problem in the MA right now.

AKDejaVu

[poopster]

The ying and yang..

The base takers are hitting bases where people ain't.

The men of fur can't find enough people to play with.

And the logic of all this is a bigger map ?

I would think that it would be more fun to have a fight over it.



But hey, I've been wrong before

[AKDejaVu]

It was too crowded before the bigger map.  The bigger map also allows for more people.  I believe HTC hopes to see 1000 person arenas some day.

The problem is... what do you do when there aren't 300 people or more on-line?  And do you need to make adjustments for it.

AKDejaVu

[poopster]

Perceptions

I thought the smaller arena was "just" right. The diversity of goals of this large group of geeks is a constant. It will never change.

The only thing that can be agreed on, is we're a bunch of geeks

And if you don't believe that, my RL friends should meet your RL friends and they can compare notes

[AKDejaVu]

I work at Intel... I have no doubts about my geekness.

I'm not really trying to promote a style or dictate a type of play.  The players do that.  I do think that the one thing that separates games like AH and Warbirds from boxed sims is the human interaction in battles.  Its their bread and butter.  It should be encouraged on a different level than it is right now.

By its design, at this moment, it is more advantageous (in regards to "winning") to avoid the enemy.  We are given some excellent tools to do just that.  Not only do we know for a fact that they can't see us, but we have excellent indicators telling us just where they are with any kind of alt.

Don't even really know if its a "problem"... but it does seem to be a trend that's moving into what I consider to be the wrong direction.

AKDejaVu