Author Topic: breif destription of AH gameplay of late..... (Read 2231 times)

Regurge · « **Reply #30 on:** May 09, 2003, 03:41:50 AM »

Hazed, a few months ago I felt much the same way you do now. I was getting tired of the same situations you describe. But think about this. If you're getting ganged by 4-5 cons every time, its because they are using team tactics and you aren't. While I find them boring to take part in, the steamroller raids are a form of team tactics. The fact is you just can't do much by yourself. Now if you get a few quality squaddies with you things start to get fun again. If you stick together and use comms you can take on a superior #s and have a good fight, maybe even win.

The past few weeks I've made it a point to always stick with the squad, and I've been having more fun than ever. Lately it seems when we get together more often than not everything just clicks and we have a great time. And for the Assassins a good turnout is 5-6 guys, so its not like we go around gangbanging everything.

I don't buy that we need to separate the furballers from the strat types. The problem is the arena gameplay tends to put them at odds. The way things are now, the best way to capture fields isn't to defeat the enemy, but rather to keep him from making it to the fight. What I mean is you kill the FHs or fuel so fighters can't or wont bother to fight, and kill the VH to get rid of GVs. No enemy around=you win. Obviously furballers are gonna get angry when the strat guys' mission is to keep them from fighting.

A better system would have both types of play compliment each other. Where base capture occurs through some mechanism of winning the furball, and strat objectives have the effect of bettering the furballers' chances in the fight. By the latter I mean bombing fuel refineries slightly reduces power of enemy engines, aircraft factories effect airframe drag/durability, things like that. The effects just can't be so severe that the other side decides its not worth it to fight.

beet1e · « **Reply #31 on:** May 09, 2003, 03:45:02 AM »

The early WB strat was fine. You simply had to destroy all targets on the field to close it - no-one could take off from it. Then land at the field. But that got a bit silly because a single B17 could capture a field. So then they introduced the ju52 with troops - just like our own C47 Goon, but later ju52 was enabled at the CVs. The hardest targets were the radar and hut/mast. I used to use an F6F with 2x1000, hit the radar so they could no longer see me/us, then get that nasty 40mm ack. Another jabo could take the hangar and fuel, remaining acks, and my last 1000#, places neatly between the hut and mast would destroy both targets. Someone else could bring the ju52. The watchword was stealth. If the enemy's city or port was destroyed, target rebuild times would be increased significantly. Everyone understood the strat.

Of course, it's possible to have too much strat - IMO WB went down that road. Here in AH, I doubt whether more than 5% of the players have a full understanding of the strat, and I'm one of the ones who does not. All this zone base stuff, radar factories in the middle of the countryside as well as radar on the field, plus being able to switch off radar by bombing HQ. Way too complicated, especially during times when there are only around 100 players on.

But whether the strat is intense or minimal does not alter my particular motivation for flying, which is with territory capture in mind, with some great fights along the way, and not the manufactured fights you see by putting fields too close together. Hazed was definitely right about that - it won't hold the long term interest. I flew like that in my first 3 months of flightsimdom - even flew WB as a Purp alongside Lazs. It was fun, but then I kept wondering why we couldn't take off from our front line field, and had to take of from the next one back, and then the one behind that, until we had no fields left and the war was won by the opposition!

Quote

They just won't play your way, will they Generalissimo?

We won't know for sure until AH2 comes out. I don't even know, so I asked the community:

The community speaks.

Mini D · « **Reply #32 on:** May 09, 2003, 04:45:58 AM »

The whole downfall of the MA is that people simply do whatever they want. You can't fault someone for wanting to have fun however they see fit (right toad), but everyone in this thread is doing it. The server, without people, would be idle... nothing happening. The people playing the game make it happen.

Right now, a large number of people playing the game have moved into such extreme behavior that the game is becoming gamey. Whether you believe it should simulate war, or just simulate dogfighting, it has become extremely gamey.

Enter the scoring competition... and gamey is taken to the extreme. Now, even the good pilots run from fights unless they have 10 squadies with them. Its sad to see.

Personally, I welcome the mission arena. It reduces the ability of the pilots to game the game. Of course... it slows down the game too. That's something I'm willing to live with. Those that don't want to can still enjoy the "classic" AH. And, who knows, your accusations that nobody will fly in the mission arena might be true. My money says they won't be nearly as accurate as some are thinking.

Anyways... just pointing out that the game does not cause anything to happen. The players do. The new players are not the only ones driving the current behavior in the MA. There are plenty of vets there to show them the way.

Ah... to sum it all up...

Wake me when AH2 gets here.

MiniD

mia389 · « **Reply #33 on:** May 09, 2003, 05:18:39 AM »

I wish others would value deaths more, I mean less HOs, less vulched=less vulching, chutes get open in time so you dont die.

Lately Ive been getting bored so I would up from the hangar,fire my engines up and taxi to ,runway take off ,do a go around and get some alt then do a missoin I planed for myself, like killing troops at a base or just fly a fighter sweep to a sector and back. Alot of times I will find 10-20 lower guys and just hover above them and if they climb up i go down and kill them but try to do nothing that will indanger my life and have an escape route. Then fly home and park my pretty P38 in hangar and kill the engines. and do a post flight check on the plane hehe. I found this to be quite fun and my flights are ALOT longer requiring drop tanks. Sometimes my misson for myself require me to head to certain sector and back but find no action lol. Even when that happens I have fun flying the P38 and means Ill be landing and returning to my family.

Then at times Ill get into the game and try upping from vulched feilds trying to save it. Usally do this when it was my base of operations.

Like others been saying Sometimes Ill play AH as a simulation and sometimes Il play it as a GAME

AKcurly · « **Reply #34 on:** May 09, 2003, 06:17:20 AM »

Yes, AH is at an awkward stage right now. We have pieces of HTC's strategy all glued together and some pieces don't fit. No surprise there ... it's complex brew they're cooking.

The stat model is lacking and a number of guys simply aren't interested in strat right now. It's too freaking frustrating.

Since HTC has answered our plea about terrain changes (see news this bbs,) we will no longer be stuck with one terrain for weeks. Further, we will get to enjoy a favorite terrain for a week, regardless of how frequently it is reset during the week.

Since we are going to have the same terrain for a week, I suggest we quit worrying about who's going to win the war and concentrate on having fun.

My favorite terrain is SFMA closely followed by Trinity. And yet, after 3 weeks of Trinity, I would become frantic in our attempts to reset it. Too much of a good thing isn't good!

We can all quit flying missions with massive numbers of planes. They are pointless now. Instead, we can invest our time in finding fun.

curly

lazs2 · « **Reply #35 on:** May 09, 2003, 08:05:27 AM »

beetle we have different memories of "the good ol days" I had said 3 digit bills in both dos AW and dos WB and then regular WB... the people in those 2 buck an hour arena weren't so much interested in building battling as.... battling.. the strat was minimal... you landed at a field to capture it was one... the guys looked for good fites because they were paying their 2 bucks an hour to be bored.

What has happened is that there are a lot of new guys and a lot of new "strat" and "rewards" for acting timidly.. the strat and the reward system "perks", work toward making people timid... add to the fact that you have so many new guys and that it is 100 times harder to defeat an opponent in a somewhat fair fite than to suicide into a building...

There are two types of players now... those who battle other players and those who battle buildings.
lazs

Don · « **Reply #36 on:** May 09, 2003, 08:38:07 AM »

Hazed:
I'm gonna write another reply in response to other replies

IMO, I don't think boredom sets in due to sheer numbers of FNGz or, the low cost of being able to take part in this addiction, or even any one map.
Again, I think it has more to do with the attitudes of some in the arena. One guy responded that he got tired of the "line em up..."approach. yeah, this happens a lot, and killshooter remains a point of concern to many who are not dweeb enough or discourteous to fly in front of you when you are saddled up. We have newbies and old hands and intermediates in the same arena, and that makes it hard for the older hands who have solidified the kind of experience (call it enjoyment) they want to have. And there are those who fly to a fight only to get ganged by 5 or 6 (and that aint because the 5 or 6 are better team players; they are dweebs falling over themselves for a kill), and who get frustrated by the whole thing.
This game and community has different levels of participants, and each (except the lowest group; the newbies) has its own ideas of what the best type of gameplay is, and it usually isn't quite right:)
I flew AW for years (not WBz) and became bored from time to time, it wasn't anyone's fault, it was me and my mood at the time; so I took some time off. When I see posts by some who state for all to see that they are quitting, I wonder about that.
Why not simply leave? Why spend the time and energy posting a long message to strangers about why you are quitting? Its a personal choice, just leave

I have to say, if this game were so totally screwed, there wouldn't be 3 to 400 people per night playing it. I remember seeing the demise of a sim once in AW, and it is apparent when a game is dying; this game isn't. And its problems for some (thankfully) don't have much to do with the quality of the game, just the quality of the gameplay which is directly attributable to the players.

Nifty · « **Reply #37 on:** May 09, 2003, 08:58:34 AM »

Toad, I disagree with you that the change in mentality has come from the changes in base capture and the bomber changes.

I believe it comes directly from the fact that 250+ in the MA used to be a HUGE deal for Aces High and now we regularly have 450+ in the MA on any given night (USA nights), and sometimes 500+ here and there.

Small attacks could work on a field when there were just 80 pilots a side. Even when they switched to towns, small squads could still take a base as the towns go down pretty easily to a couple of Typhoons or P-47s (or if you wanna spend a little perkies, the CHog!) What happened was when you tried to take a base and 20+ defenders upped to stop you. The only way to take a base now is to outnumber the defenders. Even if you pork the hangars pretty quickly, a lot of defenders are in the air. It only takes one of them to ruin your C47's, LVT2 or M3's day.

Changing the strat back to where it used to be won't change anything. Steamrollers would still be the way to go, because once a base starts flashing, the hornet's nest will get stirred up and wipe out any small strike force (unless you can NOE a small field and pork the hangars before they up. Impossible to do on a large field with a small force.)

humble · « **Reply #38 on:** May 09, 2003, 01:14:53 PM »

hazed...

I just found a whole new world at 6am (PHX Time). Last few days I've logged on for 1 hop before work. Had a blast...not really the old 1 vs 1 from the "old days" (AW 94-99 in my case) or the beta days here...but very good. I tend to fly where I'm out numbered a bit (suicidal tendencies I guess

)...anyway had some nice 1 vs 2-3 fights. Landed a 7 kill yesterday, had a couple of 4-5 kill hops before I bit the dust...today was only a couple before I got nailed ...but all in all alot of fun. Especially considering I was like 4 kills in 20+ hops in "primetime". Bout 1/2 were GV vulches on takeoff rest being part of "remember the alamo" type base defense.

Biggest problem is I'm becoming what I hate...an la-7 dweeb. Flyin low and outnumbered it's really the best ride going...whats funny is it will dance with almost anything 1 vs 1. It's a great plane if flown right.

Anyway, thinking of only flying "off peak" from now on.

I've been totally disapointed with the Ct...mostly bunch of base grabbers or mini gangbangers...at least my last few hops.

Steve · « **Reply #39 on:** May 09, 2003, 01:35:45 PM »

Ya but Mia, can ya kill mustangs? I mean a mustang is the be all end all of sim planes.

ccvi · « **Reply #40 on:** May 09, 2003, 01:44:14 PM »

OMG, you all must really be bored. You have more time to write than I have to read.

Anyway, I think it's not the game, it's the players.

Xjazz · « **Reply #41 on:** May 09, 2003, 03:24:28 PM »

S!

CT have been now more than year more intresting to me than MA.

MA have a The Numbers and that maybe is it. When I start AH, there was about 60-90 pilots in MA and we had lots of fun.

Its some times too hextic in MA now days (IMHO).

Lets be positive and wait "Two weeks" to see what kind new toy HTC could offer AH-simmers

mia389 · « **Reply #42 on:** May 09, 2003, 04:18:56 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Steve
Ya but Mia, can ya kill mustangs? I mean a mustang is the be all end all of sim planes.

Nope only mustangs I can kill are one that will fight. usally I get on there 6 and they use there speed to run, if they get stupid and turnfight its all over for them

Steve · « **Reply #43 on:** May 09, 2003, 06:01:07 PM »

do they go that high??

Tumor · « **Reply #44 on:** May 09, 2003, 06:21:46 PM »

This whole argument kinda makes ya wish BF1942 had more planes and could fit 500 players in a single arena at a time don't it?