career progression

[mjolnir]

One point that's been tumbling around in my head for the last few days...

We can assume that achieving higher ranks will be at least somewhat dependent on aerial achievement.  Thus, the folks who manage to have the free time to fly 15 hours a day, and do so, are going to be at an advantage to gain rank quickly.  That alone does not really bother me.  If that's how they spend their lives, so be it.  If you include Cadets, then there are only 11 ranks to go through.  My question is, what happens after you put on your fourth star?  Not really anywhere to go after that, except into politics.  No one has mentioned it yet (that I've seen), but it'll probably happen sooner rather than later.

[Griego]

Politics HAHAHAH hehe.

[Pyro]

We've been talking about the end game and kicking around some different ideas.  I like the idea of keeping it fairly realistic and making the end-game the final promotion that gives you a star and retires your character from flying duties.  You could decline the promotion if you want to keep flying with that character, or take it and either retire the character to a hall of fame or perhaps we could open up some new command options for players who make it to general.

[ergRTC]

eww.  Just the thought of those 15hr a days guys leading the forces makes me ill.

Of course having 50000 kills and 20000 sorties and landing a plane 4 times probably wont lend itself to a high rank, so maybe we wont have to worry about it.

[Arlo]

Retire? RETIRE?! Unless there's a pension involved ....

 Besides .... I can't picture goin' that far. If you can go from butterbar to star in the game ... even if the "war" lasts twice as long ... or longer ... than the real one did ... then that doesn't sound too realistic to me. If "making AH feel more like the real thing" is what this is all about ... better consider topping it off at Maj. (or the equivalent branch/country rank). Or ... for those who want a fresh start ... slap a "silver leaf" on the character's shoulder and rotate him home for a "war bond" drive.

 I'll say this much (more) ... IF "butter bar to star" is the ladder we climb (shiver) ... those last few rungs (O-5+) better be one helluva reach. I mean ... even for the guys that play the game a minimum of 16 hrs a day/seven days a week ... if they get there in a year's time, there's something toooooo easy.

[Grey13]

If 2 missions up one RAF to kill bombers on LW to protect bombers. Then there will ne a fail 50% loose pionts and a win 50% gain points. So on avg it will take more than just playing the came 15 hrs a day to steadily increase you rank, youll proably need a good squad, or a least good pilots in your mission.

[Sharky]

Originally posted by ergRTC
eww.  Just the thought of those 15hr a days guys leading the forces makes me ill.

Of course having 50000 kills and 20000 sorties and landing a plane 4 times probably wont lend itself to a high rank, so maybe we wont have to worry about it.

Pyro could you expound a little on the how the missions and objectives will be decided?  How much influence will General K00L Dudz have on what missions are put up, what their composition is and what the objectives will be.  I guess what Im really asking is will the "command staff" be scripted or will the ranking players be the command staff?

Thanks
Sharky

[mjolnir]

Originally posted by Pyro
We've been talking about the end game and kicking around some different ideas.  I like the idea of keeping it fairly realistic and making the end-game the final promotion that gives you a star and retires your character from flying duties.  You could decline the promotion if you want to keep flying with that character, or take it and either retire the character to a hall of fame or perhaps we could open up some new command options for players who make it to general.

So, you get a star, your character retires from flying duties, and then....?  You don't get to fly in TOD anymore, thanks for playing?  I've been under the impression that this is a more or less permanent arena, not just for one year or something like that.  Am I wrong?

[Batz]

How about resetting rank every quarter?

[SKurj]

mjolnir..

if he gets 'retired' u start fresh with a new character..

SKurj

[mjolnir]

that would be one way around it, but pyro didn't actually say anything about a new character.  Just curious, that's all.  How many times are people going to want to start over from the bottom, if it's actually possible to make it through the ranks more than once?

[Pyro]

No, you wouldn't be locked out of the arena for becoming a general, you'd simply retire that character to a Hall of Fame and start a new one.  And again, I'm not saying this is how it will be, just throwing out some of the discussions we've had here on putting an end-game into it.    

Missions come down from HQ (the host), players don't get to make missions.  Rank and leadership roles will not revolve around what you're going to go do (e.g. we're bombing Berlin today) but rather how you're going to do the mission (e.g. Flight X is going to range ahead of the bomber stream, Flight Y is close cover, Flight Z is staying above, etc.)  I was just tossing around the idea of perhaps allowing generals to do something more on the strategic side, but even if we did do something along those lines, it would limited and not a replacement of the HQ generated missions.

[bowser]

If I read you correctly, "generals" would have little input into or control of the missions.  Good.  The more control in the hands of "HQ/Host" and the less control in the hands of players the better I believe.

bowser