Guess I went about it all wrong but I jumped into every fight I could find and reveled in my first earned online kill... The more I got killed the more determined I was to learn how to kill.. seemed everyone was that way. no shortage of agressive guys!
LOL Lazs. It took me about a year to get a positive k/d when I started AW in 1993. I could do pretty well in 1v1 but just didn't have my SA down. It was pretty harsh but I was determined not to suck, eventually
I still get in too many fights I know I should avoid, but at least I can win a few more of them today.
A2A was about all SVGA AW was about. Taking the handful of capturable central bases was a mechanism to get closer, more intense furballs. There were numerous tutorials, and virtually none focused on A2G. It was all, how to fight in the FW, etc. (I believe Twist authored many, and then there were the transcripts from various Shaw online chats). I still have a folder of printouts that I downloaded and studied to improve my skills. I even joined Genie just to get access to some older files, since I already played cheaper on Delphi/Cris net. Bought Shaw, etc.
I noticed the change when Gamestorm came on the scene. I flew the first "Bigweek" mission with about three CTDs, then one or two beta flights in the FR ma, then took a year off. When I came back something really odd had happened.
The small neutral/center maps (that brought the action together)were gone, replaced by the Big Pork Pac map. A shocker was my first sortie, where I followed a p-51 across two sectors, low on his 6 by about 2K, waiting for him to engage. In the old AW this would have been a foregone conclusion, but not here. He eventually was killed by ack trying to divebomb (milkrun) a strategically useless, undefended base in a completely dead sector. It was so out of place, I e-mailed a friend and former AW player (yyrkoon) who also hadn't made the move about it.
I soon noticed AW had evolved to big groups of Az, Bz and Cz far away from each other on the big map, taking bases with 5+ v 1 odds. The few defenders that wanted a fight quickly got tired of the gangbang, and flying two extra sectors because of porked fuel. I think the smaller maps, with limited capturable targets that forced people to fight in the same area, was what had changed in the game followed by human nature. And to be fair, with numbers in the hundreds instead of the tens, the central model was less viable from a technology standpoint.
This is not an easy game in which to become adequately successful where ACM is concerned. There is three-dimensional battle space, physics, required knowledge (aircraft performance, tactics, weapons, bullet drop, deflection, etc.), SA... did i mention SA? A large map makes it easier to avoid having to learn ACM, allowing people to "succeed" in a gameplay involving overwhelming numbers and "toolsheds." If you're on the short end of the stick, then go somewhere else and be the ganger. It's easy enough, just look for the big green bar with the small red bar, I'm sure you'll see one.
For those of us who came of age on AW DOS, though, it's a dramatically different reality. We have experienced our version of fun, which involves fighting other people who actually want to fight in an A2A environment. Not necessarily 1v1 as in a dueling arena, but just a willingness to roll the dice and say what the hell instead of, "What if I lose!" For some like myself, it's not even about strat vs furball. If the strat was more complex (actual strat vs. jabo steamroller) it might actually be interesting. Hell, I even gooned and bombed in the AW DOS days when the goal was furball, because the strat helped facilitate that goal.
I can thank the big pork in AW for one thing -- it brought me here after 8 years of loyalty even before EA pulled the plug. By the same token, I hope the situation in AH doesn't get as bad as it got in AW, or else I'll be looking elsewhere once again.
Charon
