Feedback for HTC

[OIO]

Quasi-rant, but please consider this as feedback on the game, which I hope helps out in some of the AH2 stuff.

1- Gameplay:

One of the things that have gone constantly down in the past year has been gameplay. New maps have been added, new planes and new vehicles. And yet the fun factor has gone down, primarily because no matter what is added, the victory conditions and the means to achieve them remain the same.

IMO, this is because every day you log in, its the same drudgery: furballs (encouraged by the extreme proximity of the fields), milkruns (encouraged by the huge amount of fields avaliable and the wide fronts) and it bogs down to taking off and shooting stuff before they shoot you down. Tactical and strategic gameplay elements are virtually nonexistent. AH is like QUAKE but with WW2 airplanes. The mission system allows players to organize a massive gangbang, not a "mission" per say (unless its a bomber mission, but then again, furballing and kamikaze jabo'ing is so much more appealing).

2- Damage Model, Icons & their impact on gameplay.

Two huge issues: Icons the damage model.

Currently the AH damage model allows for a single ping from a 20mm cannon or even a single 50 cal at extreme range (d1.1) to rip out an entire wing. Enter the spray&pray issue; which is amplified by the fact that players get up-to-the-yard range information from the laserangefinder icon.

Dogfighting is reduced to mere furballing thanks to the icons literally advertising your presence out to d6.0. All it takes to avoid getting bounced is to spend .1 seconds in each view looking out for red icons. A player can get a full 540 degree scan of the sky (except bottom) in less than half a second.

My suggestions :

1- Change the layout of fields in the current maps (yes yes im using the terrain editor to come up with one, but this is a heads up!) to encourage other kind of play than the furball/quake. Im trying to make the trinity map have the map be moved by GROUND forces; while airfields are sparsed out and assigned specific airplanes so that all fields get the "short range" fighters (la7,spitfires,zero's,yaks,109s,la5,hurricanes,p40's and land-based ground attack planes like il2, ju87); middle fields receive the multipurpose planes (p38,F4U-1,190,n1k,p47s,mossie,ju88,yak9t,p51s, me262) and rearmost fields receive bombers and long range escort planes (all buffs,P51,P38), and carriers receive carrier planes (f6f, seafire, f4ud/c/4, zeros,f4f's,tbm,sbd,vals). Stay tuned for the end product.

2- Icon suggestion: Copy WW2OL's icons. They work 100% to get rid of the fatal quakishness that are AH icons and still provide the same info but without giving exact laser ranging.

Damage model suggestion: Can't say more than I hope its being seriously reworked.

And of course, please remove the autoretract on the P-38s flaps and make the dive flaps give a 3g nose up pull when deployed past 300mph.

Its the icons, gameplay and the P-38's issues that got me fed up with AH 3+ months ago and made me leave. Since I changed my ISP I got another 2 week trial; and im seeing the same thing still going on. 5 days of playing and again, im fed up.

*throws salt over shoulder*

[BenDover]

AH2 will be more mission structured, and will have an improved DM.

Improved in what way I don't know, nor do I know if skuzzy was lieing or not.

[SlapShot]

1- Gameplay ...

Good luck ... I wish you all the best, and I am serious. I have a feeling that when AH: TOD comes, we will see a shift in the MA (which will be called AH: Classic) and what is the constant topic of conversation now (milkrunning & gang-banging) will really not present itself anymore.

2- Damage Model, Icons & their impact on gameplay.

From what I have read the damage model is being worked on, so I think you got your wish there. I have a problem with losing the icons and ranging. Until I can see this 2-D game in 3-D and be able to judge distances thru my own steroscopic eyeballs, then I think that the ranging needs to stay. I have never seen WW2OL and I am sure I am not alone, so I/we have no clue as to what you are suggesting.

As far as your P-38 problems, I believe Pyro posted that he is willing to take viable specs from AH flyers, so I would suggest that you find that thread and see if you can get your 2 cents in.



Here is the thread ...

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87239

[OIO]

slapshot, i have wet dreams about AH having WW2OL icon system.

Thanks for the link too!

BTW, the WW2OL icon system is like AH's. It gives plane type ID, range and tells you if it enemy or friendly with the icon color.

However, the range is not shown with a number, but with a circle around the plane that, when the circle is full around the plane its at maximum range, and when its between 10 and 12 (clock positions) the plane is inside d1000 , but it wont tell you EXACTLY what the range is, but its damn close , with a margin of error of ~d150 give or take i'd say.

And finally the icons are not permanent. If you have a red spitfire chasing a friendly plane on your 3 OC.

you look at your 3 OC and you will see 2 cons (but no icons). Keep watching 3 OC for 1 second and both cons get a very faded grey icon (aka, as if in RL you were "beggining to ID" the cons), the grey icons become solid at 2 seconds and you see plane IDs and range indicators, but no friend/foe .. 3 seconds and you see the icons fully solid, one red, one green, both with plane types (and in AHs case i'd say the plane type is replaced by pilot's name for the friendly plane) with their range indicators.

If you turn your head to watch 12 OC, the icons to your 3 OC will fade out in the same rate.. 1st second they go from fully colored/ranged/named to grey with range and plane id only at 2nd second to faded grey at 3rd second with no plane id or range indicator.

In WW2OL this icon system ALONE has a dramatic effect. Their flight model is worse than MSCFS1 (uber arcade), but the icons make it so that if you dont have a wingman or if you dont keep a watch in the sky, you will get bounced and never see the guy that hit you (just like in real life). And it works both ways, the guy watching the sky for cons to bounce may not see you slip past him if you are flying in a section of the sky he wasnt staring at. Heck in WW2OL ive even flown in formation with a 109 in my spit 1, to his left side  and the guy didnt see me for a good 10 seconds (he prolly was watching his 11 oc and 2 oc views to bounce a lower con lol).

In AH however, you can go into a massive furball alone and have instant knowledge of where everyone is just by stirring the hat switch.

And its these icon systems alone that single-handedly makes this realistic Flight Model WW2 flight SIM like AH into a quake arena; while it gives an arcade flight model WW2 GAME like WW2OL have a much more realistic dogfighting.

[Seeker]

Drunks should cost buff perks. About 5, two each.

Paratroops were elite and expensive troops; they are indeed the "perk birds" of the military.

Either turn train ack down; or up the perk value for train kills.


Both of these would spread the fights out a lot more.

[Saintaw]

Just a note about the WWIIOL icon system:
I like it too, but you know folks, how many days are you giving before you're going to hear from PuterMan "Hey, I wouldn't need 2 seconds to identify this/that plane, I've got Uber eyes, i could do it in 0.00481 seconds!"

pardon me, just using the wonderfull adversity that comes out of humankind

[OIO]

saintsaw: the WW2OL forums are home to much more whining than these forums, and ive yet to see anyone whine about their icon system (in the air) as of yet.

But if they do whine in AH, we just give them the ol' treatment: 20mm!