Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: hitech on August 10, 2004, 01:28:00 PM
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To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
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awesome idea HT!
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I say try it. If it don't work out well we can always undo it.
-edit-:Of course there'll be many who will whine on 200 and here, but then again there's plenty of that already. Maybe giving people something new to complain about will help them feel better though.
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It wouldn't have been my first choice of remedy, but it's still worth consideration. ;) Heck, I'd accept it!
One thing though, The Whinometer cabling is going to need liquid coolant.
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Gut reaction, I don't like it. It feels heavy handed, but it may have come to that point.
The part that really jumped out at me from a negative standpoint was "or log off". I'm not keen on things that make people log off. However, the numbers imbalance makes people log off already, but in a way that further hurts the balance.
The idea has merit. I would rather see the people on the overpopulated side nudged to log off than the people on the underpopulated side.
The question I have is how much of a delay between flights are you thinking of?
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On the amount of time, I need to do some estamations of average time of flight vs down time. It is then a matter of picking the time limit to put aproximatly the same number in the air from each side.
HiTech
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A couple of questions I have is how would that effect the CT? Also would it be a server side or CM adjusted item for those of us who put setups into the CT arena?
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HT, will this time limit be dynamic? Numbers aren't out of whack 24/7. If this is implemented, how will the time allowed between country switches be affected? I'm afraid I'll be switching a LOT.
I basically agree with Karnak. Initial reaction was 'iffy', but it's worth a shot.
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neat idea
what about if you did timed planes on both the higher numbered countries as a percentage of overage when compared to the lowest numbered country?
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Yes it would be dynamic Octavious.
And there would be a some scaling numbers and on off flags to adjust it in the arena setup.
HiTech
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So the greater the imbalance in numbers the greater the delay, correct?
If implimented it will be interesting to see if country loyalty is the issue it seems to be on the BB. For my part I'd change countries rather than log off.
Which bring up another question. What of the delay in changing countries? It limits spying to some degree, but if this were to cause rapid occilations in the numbers players could find themselves trapped on a side that has a significant delay and log off in frusteration.
A quasi solution to that might be to set it so that switching from Knight to Rook gives a 12 hour delay on switching to Knight, but the player can still switch to Bishop. That would give one more switch before being locked down for 12 hours.
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Well, you wanted the truth... I don't like the idea.
I think there is no "incentive" other than negative incentive
for people to change sides. Try radically reducing the perk
requirements for planes in the lesser sides.
Oh, and I also think your idea is going to be really messing
organized squad ops. We would never know what side our
squaddies are on.
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As for me, I'm against it. I fly with my squad on rooks. Everyone voted Rooks, so here we are. I feel that I would be inclined to lose interest in playing if I have to wait to re-up after a flight just because more people like to fly for the same country.
I'm sorry, but I have to say that countries who lack players on certain nights like to blame everything that goes wrong on their player deficiency, when if 10-15 of them got together they could have many successful raids away from some of the front line furballs.
--Mike/Howitzer
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"Which bring up another question. What of the delay in changing countries? It limits spying to some degree, but if this were to cause rapid occilations in the numbers players could find themselves trapped on a side that has a significant delay and log off in frusteration. "
Exactly. If they find themselves trapped and frustrated, maybe waiting a few more minutes for the others to log will help alleviate their problem :D
I sense a rise in tension levels with the fellers who only get a few hours in a month.
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I understand both sides of this argument.
Some think that loyalty to a "chess piece" as they call it is dumb.
Others think that the bonds grown over years of flying with the same people are a reason to fly (for 1 country especially)
My questions about the numbers thing are plentiful. When you mention 20% is that from the "lowest" to the "highest" country? Example:
Knights have 125 online
Bishops have 135 online
Rooks have 151 online
Those numbers are not way out of whack, but the math says the rooks have 20.8% more than the knights. In that scenario the rooks (though without overwhelming numbers) would be held from flying for the determined time.
Another issue I thought of is spawn campers in GV's. If in the above scenario the limit is opposed, and I spawn to a base not knowing someone is camping, I suddenly die and can not "fly".
Unfortunately, the only way sometime to clear a "spawn camper" is to spawn multiple people in quick succession so that someone gets a turret around to kill or disable said camper.
Another scenario includes a NOE base attack. In the current situation a base far behind lines can be attacked, and many miss it. The few that do go to defend try as they might sometimes get killed. If they are unable to take off again in an attempt to save the base, it is possible the base could be lost.
I don’t want to bring up the ugly topic of HO's, but this scenario I believe would only encourage poor tactics by the attackers. Take a few cannon planes HO every plane that tries to get up, and then soon no one will be able to defend. That is an unrealistic tactic, that I thing would adversely affect game play in a bad way.
Another question about this is would the time limit between changing countries be changed? If I don’t want to be limited, and change to knights, but a bunch also change, I could be limited again. Unfortunately with the current time limit I would not be able to change again. If the limit is changed too short you could run into the problems we have had in the past with country hoppers.
I understand that the problem is what it is. I personally see no overwhelming "quick" or "easy" solution. My thoughts are this has possibilities, but the exact details would need some serious consideration. I also see loopholes in this idea where what someone like myself would call “unsavory” players would take advantage of the above examples and “game the game” to use a bad expression.
These quick thoughts I came up with at work are just that. I hope you can find a way to work this out, while keeping the whole community happy. Personally I would have to say that I am not in favor of this possibility. I am sorry.
<> HiTechCreations Staff, please do not take my opinion on this matter as directed at any fo yourselves.
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LMAO 13 posts in the time it took me to write that
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I think its great that you're addressing the issue, HT. The burden of this proposed solution falls hardest on squad member Rooks who have extreme country-loyalty, flying on their squad nights. It'd be tough to fly squad missions with pilots sitting out on the sidelines for various durations. Its a non-issue for players with no country-specific loyalty.
It does kinda depend on just how much time penalty you are talking about though. I usually take a break after a death anyway so a few minutes is no big deal to me.
One thought, just the idea that this feature is coming may drive some entire squads from Rooks to Knight or Bishop, to avoid the penalties. So even the threat of implementation may help bring about more balance.
Also, it may make resets that much more difficult, since so many of the resets are powered by the suicide jabo hordes. This could effectively take that away, are ww willing to play out on stalled maps? Maybe it would change gameplay as well, encouraging pilots to fly non-suicide missions with hope for survival. Perhaps the time penalty should be the average length of time it would take to return to base, had you not died on the suicide jabo mission.....
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JB73,
My feeling is that most of the scenarios you described are almost always run by the country with numbers against the one without and so the delay would not be present. It also seems to me to be a "So what?" situation if the country with numbers has trouble defending a base due to the delay. That is kind of the point.
Maybe 20% over is too small a numbers advantage to warrant the delay. Then again, maybe with 20.8% over in your example they would only be experiencing a few seconds of delay. However the 200 vs 130 vs 100 we've had lately may result in minutes of delays.
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Seems like a very interesting idea.
Not only does the leading super-power country limited in absolute number of planes in the air.. but effectively they are also limited in the relative time taken to up reinforcements.
Like, one of your field is being vulched. But you're a superpower. Ut-oh.. you can't up planes to save it!!!
...
As a regular idea I think it'd be interesting.
But one thing that concerns me, is that it'd kill the RJO. In this case, the Rooks have more people because the Rook squads have organized themselves and voluntarily agreed to have a 'squad night' at the same promised time.
It's one thing that many dweebs or newbies want to hang out with Rooks all the time... and if that leads to overall high numbers.
But RJO is different - the numbers boasted then, is numbers earned. Multiple Rook squads got together and worked hard, promised, agreed, adjusted schedules, and did all that stuff to gather people. It's not an 'unearned' advantage as in the case above. Nobody said the Knits or Bish couldn't do the same. It's their squads who weren't cut out, or eager enough to unite all of their squads to have a joint-squad night-operation at a certain day.
Should the RJO and its participants be punished, because the Bish and Knit squads aren't organized enough to do the same?
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or restrict planesets for the higher numbered countries..
take out the most flown planes in MA starting relative to the sides
this could change every month with new plane flown stats available
remove the nik and la7 and watch em jump ship
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Removing perk on planes and vehicals for the most out numbered side, and a scaled reduction on perk for planes and vehicals of the next lowest side might be an interesting short term solution.
I'm not sure at what point this would be triggered.
Example:
R 250
B 120
K 105
Those percentages seem normal these days.
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bleah... limiting any customer's ability to fly when they're logged on would not be too good of a concept - especially in the MA.
maybe if you could set a fuel burn (or fuel loadout) limitation on the side that has the 20% advantage? even then, bleah...
you can't really legislate effectively dweebs who won't take the initiative themselves in redressing any imbalances.
you could always open up a second smaller arena, using small maps, with say a population cap of 210-280... this may shift some numbers, altho' in what manner is unknown. it would at least give those who are gonna "log" for some gameplay reason an alternative - some simply do not like the CT or DA.
or any combination of the above.
g'luck with whatever you come up with.
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Sure would throw a loop in squad ops and mission plannings.
I still believe if new players were "funneled" to the country or countries with lowest numbers on the average at any particular time and were locked in on a settling in period before they could switch countries it would help a lot. But hey, what do I know.
I think your propasal can be sounded more with the players of Rooks now than the rest of us. Although it would affect all of us at different times, at the current state it would affect Rooks the most.
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I would have to reserve judgement until the numbers of what constitutes "out of whack" are on the table.
Not too fond of the idea the more I think about it. Need to remember it's the sandbox. Sorta with Shane on this one.
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Eagler,
I was thinking of something like that while reading HiTech's opener, but then thought how it would deprive me of those juicy La-7 and P-51D targets.
I'm torn.
shane,
The current system does the same thing. The players on the low number country are frequently denied the ability to participate at least as much as HiTech's idea would do so the the high number country.
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JB73: If eveyone would post thoughts like that I would be one happy camper.
As to the spawn camper, the other side of that, it would make spawn camping less profitible. So think it would even out, but you are correct it could be a problem.
As to the % was think your example would be about the top of no limit imposed.
HiTech
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Limiting people's "playing" time is stepping on holy ground that you must think very strongly about treading on.
What you might get is a balanced arean via loss of subscriptions. Would the loss be greater than the lost of subs due to an un-balanced arena ... only you can tell ... you have the numbers.
I would assume that this "time out" period would only relate to planes and not ground vehicles.
You might see an increase in ground vehicle usage because of the "time out", if one is allowed to take a ground vehicles during the "time out".
Either way, it probably won't affect me, so after drinking a couple of scotchs' and thinking on it real hard ... give it a whirl.
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that's why you limit the vehicles/planes not the time - the numbers crowd can up but just in , what some would call, inferior rides
as the numbers would change and the availability of stuff would be dynamic, I think it would just play into the game well
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Would you use the country with the most numbers compared to the country with the least number to compute the +/- 20% or compare to the middle country?
As a set rule comparing against the country with the least numbers is it possible that you may have to switch to a country that is down to a few bases, without dar, and on the wrong side of a vulch fest being conducted by the other two countries?
Even though it most likely would not be a factor during the times I play, at face value I would not enjoy a time delay between flights and certainly would not enjoy being forced to change to a country that was close to a reset.
Im not sure how creating a situation where people may have to chose to log off instead of play will help.
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Maybe slapping perks on previously unperked planes according to the seriousness of imbalance...??
Like, starting from 20% imbalance...
* (20% - 5 ENY)/5 = 3 perks on the La7.
* (30% - 5 ENY)/5 = 5 perks for the La-7
* (40% - 5 ENY)/5 = 7 perks for the La-7
...
* (20% - 20 ENY)/5 = 0 perks for the 109G-10
* (30% - 20 ENY)/5 = 2 perks for the 109G-10
* (40% - 20 ENY)/5 = 4 perks for the 109G-10...
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In case of already perked planes, add the calculated values to the perks which the perk multiplier is applied.. and so on...?
It'd not directly limit the flying time or flying choice, but it will increase the point burden of flying planes.. and if the imbalance is really heavy most of the best MA planes will all become perked... and putting pressure on people with low perks to either;
a) fly a suckier plane
b) or fly more timidly
c) or risk the perks and fly the same
In any case of a), b), or c), it will make the outnumbered people feel a little easier to fight the horde, or at least much more profitable....
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Worth a try, HiTech, as mentioned earlier, if it doesn't work out you could undo it.
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Ok, gave it some more thought.
Restricting a players ability to fly is a bad idea IMO. Now lets take whats available now to keep outnumbered countries pilots from logging.
The more the merrier ingame is the goal.
I can only give myself as an example. I don't care if my country is outnumbered. I'll find a place to play.
I only log when DAR is disabled. DAR is a game killer for me, I don't care about numbers.
Now when your being hammered one of the first thing that goes is DAR.
Why not use your current thought of unbalanced numbers and apply it to DAR instead ??
If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??
Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??
That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.
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I think its a BAD idea, I'm willing to bet it will cost you customers. It will be an even worse implementation if you do not allow people to change countries on a whim.
Why not use the current ruleset to encourage balanced teams? For example, multiplying the perk bonus/cost, or even not allowing the side with overwealming numbers to fly lower ENY aircraft.
I had always hoped the squads themselves on each side would be responsible and mature enough to prevent this type of BS equalizer. Its too bad we need something from HTC to do something we should have been doing all along; treat each other with respect.
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Maybe this whole issue is self regulating anyway.
If people get fed up with being gand-banged etc., they will log off or switch country. There are some like me however, that actually like fighting against what might be considered overwhelming odds (it's a Brit thing) and find that far more interesting than the alternatives.
At the same time, those who are gang-banging will eventually get bored with it - and move on.
The other consideration might be that with 'equal' numbers, the chance of a reset (which to some people is the whole 'victory') will be reduced - and again reduce their interest.
If I remember correctly, Rooks were severely out-numberd for some time, yet now are the equal or even more. This change was achieved without any legislative involvement.
I guess my feelings are to leave well alone, unless of course you want to switch to a two country system (in line with most battles - Allies and Axis) - then we will have something to fight/argue about !!!!!!!
Regards
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Looks like Kweassa and I are on the same track, only he hit 'post' a little quicker than I did :)
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Another thought. (Man! That`s 2 in one day. A new record)
The sky must be falling or something, but I agree with poop. Take care of the dar porking and the rest will sort itself out.
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Here is a spread sheet of what I am thinking adjust the
Player counts, and the Base
Percentage and mins per percentage values to play with effects.
HiTech
Spread Sheet (http://www.hitechcreations.com/hitech/wait_time.xls)
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Well this is going to sound strange but I'm a bish and I don't like this idea. While it is frustrating at times to have to deal with the sometimes overwhelming numbers of the rooks, I don't like the idea of paying customers being restricted on their playing time. I know I wouldn't want to be. Even if it was just for a minute, people aren't paying for a waiting room. Still, this leaves a problem with numbers.
Possible Alternatives
Instead of doing all this stuff to existing players, why not just funnel all new accounts into the sides with the fewest subscriptions. It may take time, both in skill development and simple number growth, but it doesn't step on anybody's ability to play.
Or, further expand the perk incentives and deterrents. When one side gets way more numbers, planes that wouldn't normally be perked magically cost 2 or 3. This only applying to the most popular planes like the la7 and nik. Perhaps it could also be possible for a normally perked plane to even become free when faced with a large opponent.
Anyway, my thoughts.
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Originally posted by hitech
We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides
I think this is forcing people. Limiting playing time is not a good idea, IMO. What would happened if you get killed trying to take off? You have to wait and if it happens again, get pissed and log???
What if instead of limiting plaing time, you limit plane sets. If a country has over - lets say - 10% no more 51s and LA7s. Over 20%, no more spits, niks etc. The planes and the % can be figured out after some analisys. Also, you could do it by years. Limmit the 1944 set then the 1943 etc.
Who knows, we may see a rook hord coming down on us flying 202s and spit Is , LOL :D :aok
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I would think increasing the benefits for being on a weaker side or minor perk price for higher end planes on the over populated country would be better than enforcing a downtime for most of the reasons Jb pointed out.
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No way... what about being vulched???
If my country has more pilots but one of my bases is getting overCAPPED what i have to do?? cry as usual? NO
This is just the thing that we don't need. Anyways, would fly smarter that actually doing... BUT NO!
Greets.
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Originally posted by hitech
JB73: If eveyone would post thoughts like that I would be one happy camper.
As to the spawn camper, the other side of that, it would make spawn camping less profitible. So think it would even out, but you are correct it could be a problem.
As to the % was think your example would be about the top of no limit imposed.
HiTech
neat idea HT. can u maybe set the time limits to certain bases?
as example above the rooks have a 20.8% advantage over knits but not bish. so maybe tie the reup timer to only bases along the
Knit Rook border, and allow unlimited ups @ the Bish Rook border.
they wouldnt log off, just shift the fight else where.
whels
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It's not just numbers inbalance, it can also be how those numbers end up getting used (overwhelming one guy). The issue is the MA is often pretty dynamic, even on Sundays with RJO, the numbers are usually only overwhelming for a short while (couple of hours) and then settle back out as entire squads of Rooks log-off, sometimes swinging back to someone else. If you get people switching during times like that, they are locked into their new country (12 hour switch rule) and you might end up with swings back and forth moreso than what happens now.
I think something more subtle might even things up a bit more on the longer term picture... the perk thing could work. A lot of people would put up with a short term perk cost for some of the better (non-currently-perked) rides, but long term they'd reconsider their situation. Something along the lines of what Kweassa suggested.
Just my thoughts but it's great you opened this up for comment.
-Soda
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You have to find a way to reward the underdog not penalize the pilot from the country with the most pilots.
Perk plane cost, DAR ?????????????? :D
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Originally posted by nopoop
Ok, gave it some more thought.
Why not use your current thought of unbalanced numbers and apply it to DAR instead ??
If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??
Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??
That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.
I think that's an excellent idea. Add the perk incentive with that
and help the imbalance with superior planes.
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Saw the spreadsheet.
I think the basic 'standards' on calculating the 'percentage' seems simple and easy to understand.
So the Bish are -8.43
Knits are -2.71
Rooks are 0.14
Bish and Knits are at minus values, so no restrictions to them.
Rooks are at "0.14".
What really needs consideration IMO, would be what to do with that value "0.14"...
What do you do with it?
Do you use it to create a time limitation? Or to make a perk slap? Or maybe transform that value into some other type of restriction?
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How about making the "Minutes per Percent Over" into a basis value for somehow making a "perks for percent over"?
Something like...
Rooks are 50% of total MA, and 13% over
{{(13% over)x2} - 5 ENY} / 2 = 10.5
10.5 perks applied to a previously unperked 5 ENY plane..
...
Sorry if I keep drifting too much into perk issues, but I think dabbling in perks would be indirect and much less infuriating, but still subtley more effective means to persuade people to jump countries, than directly limiting flight time.
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Just increase perk costs on late war rides as a country gains more players versus the other 2. Keep it even and the costs stay zero.
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Nopoop.
Giving rewards to the lower number side, while some what helping out the getting screwed feeling does not seem to provide a large enough force to move people across countrys.
Had considered new players to the lower side, but this does nothing to help out short term balance, and allso provides a force for people to want to go to the higher number side. I.E. If your on the high side, you have lots of dweebs to kill.
Limiting plane selection on the high side could possibly work. But im not sure there would be any less complaints than for the time limit. Can hear all thow , how come "Insert fav plane here" is limited and not the "Insert fav dweeb complaint plane here" is not.
HiTech
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Just allow fuel to be porked down to 25% for the country with the most numbers. This will then give the defending countries the opportunity on whether they want to limit the larger countries flying time or not. If you want to make the effort of preventing them fly then you should be rewarded; it lets you make the decision, not some auto-setup feature. If you can't be bothered to hit their fuel then put up and shut up. It would also allow the larger country to have to defend and perhaps take their attention away from attacking the lower numbered countries.
Of course if numbers balance out then fuel goes up to 75% or 100%.
I'm not too keen on the original idea of there being a time delay especially during certain times when there are only about 20 - 30 players each side. Literally just a few extra players on one side would then activate this time delay relaunch.
Limiting certain plane types is going to do diddly-squat. They'll just get into another plane, simple as that. If you're facing 10, 20 Fw190A5s or Spit Vs then you're still basically going to be outnumbered which ever way you look at it. It's irrelevent what plane type they're flying imo because they're are plenty of capable aircraft in AH and they'll just move onto the next 'best' aircraft.
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I agree with the perk modifier or even a plane selection modifier(set by year) instead of a time limit.
That way anyone can fly whenever they want, just a matter of having enough perks or flying something slightly inferior.
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I agree, although I'm a Bish I don't think limiting or delaying flight time for paying customers is a good idea.
I like the idea of limiting the planeset and/or making previously unperked planes, perkies to the highest side.
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I fly with my squad. I wouldn't switch countries, even with the imposed wait, if my squad didn't switch.
I'm glad you guys are addressing the issue, but I'm thinking this will just, ahem, irritate the folks that, like me, fly with their squads.
Now if most of your customer base is made up of lone wolf types, then I guess the squad thing isn't an issue.
As an alternative (and this may be where your going here), is there some way you can alleviate or ameliorate the advantages of the numbers (maybe at least harden DAR or limit the impact of the HQ raid on DAR. Numbers is bad enuff (course you don't have to fly far to find a fight), but being on the down side of a numbers deficit and continually blind (for days), well that's just plain miserable. Can't understand why I keep coming back into that sort of environment. :D
P.S. after reading the rest of the thread, I really like the taking away the popular rides (not perking them, but eliminating them, although I sure do enjoy hunting down the LaLas.).
Also I've seen some other threads where a Time to Live timer is set at some arbitrary point, i.e. one side gets down to, say, four bases, they have to retake a base in the next, say 2 hrs or it's a reset. That idea might have some merit. Keeps one side from being kept blind and vulched for 2 days on end.
Originally posted by hitech
To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
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Originally posted by hitech
Here is a spread sheet of what I am thinking adjust the
Player counts, and the Base
Percentage and mins per percentage values to play with effects.
HiTech
Spread Sheet (http://www.hitechcreations.com/hitech/wait_time.xls)
HT could you clarify what i am reading here?
cell E5 i read as a percentage of a minute, meaning it would actually be 23.33~~~ seconds wait time in that scenario?
i see that as a little harsh in the given scenario.
what if you added a multiplier of some sort, where if the whole arena is less than say 350 there would be no effect. then the closer odds like in both my numbers and yours would not be effected, only when the "horde's" come and the arena has 400-600 people in it. with numbers like:
knights 140
bishop 175
rooks 195
in that example the numbers are more unbalanced, and the "need" to even out is greater.
also change E3,4,5 to xxxxxxx*50 instead of 100
i dont know how you could "void" the formula if the arena only had 200 online or whatever but thats just my thought
what you think?
thank very much for the kind words HiTech, im only trying sir
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why the hell not. lets do it:D :aok
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Maby if we all looked deeper into what HT is trying to do is get everyone set up for ToD , so that when ToD does come out in 2 weeks we will all be set in that frame of flying time and as such ,
so no one does get flustered and log , but instead accepts the fact that what is coming around the corner for everyone .
Besides IMO the Country with the Lower numbers as it is these days, needs to get organised and go on the offencive and start setting up mission after mission , and not just to go straight for Rook HQ as it seems is being done regularly , all we do is resupply and where good to go .
Just get together and work together.
Now as for the Perk the Ride thing, as in the 109G10 , go ahead it will mean that im flying a perk ride , and the more kills I land with this puppy the better , doesnt matter to me in the least , perk everything , ill still fly and ill still land kills with my Squad .
Why not make the MA like CT with only 1 front allies and axis, then lets see who complains.
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JB73 ...
I read it as ...
For every 1% over 0% you get 1 minute time out.
Rooks are %0.142857143 over, which would result in a 1 minute time out for the Rooks.
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Oscillations and standing waves. Think of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Example:
Rooks have a 2 min. delay. Myself and everyone else that just died move to bish. Now knits have the delay and enmasse they come bish. Now bish have the delay and 70 of us are chasing our tails trying to be on a team with no delay.
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All these idea's seem great, however I believe the time limit between fights would surely do the job. Its more realistic that way.
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I think that your solution would help because of one very important characteristic of the steam roled country, they seem to allways kill more then they are killed. So you will be introducing a quality of attrition into the game. Also big missions run by the more powerful country will take a while to form up. This is just realistic.
I think you should take the idea farther and put sorti rates into the fundimental game engine. Set established sorti rates that can be maintained by a fighter or bomber hanger thus establishing the sorti rate for a field. Huge for huge fields, respectable but vulnerable for small fields. As hangers are taken down the sorit rate for that field is taken down. Then you can adjust the sorti rate as you desire with your side ballancing algorithm.
But I have thought that for a few years and your idea is at least a move in that direction.
Need to bring some scense of attrition to the game so that undermaned but competent countries can develop some hope of blunting a steam roller attack.
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Good idea, but I don't think it'll pan out. As others have said before, limiting a person's ability to fly will cause some to log out. Whether its a few seconds or a few minutes, if you're on the side with greatest numbers you still want to wing up and pound targets. Having a message say "System: You can not fly for 15 seconds" would really annoy some folks. Limiting (some would say punishing) the individual would merely slow down the Mongolian Horde based on loss rate. The more Rooks shot down, the slower the Horde can wing up again because nobody can fly for the next 30 seconds. Once that 30 seconds is up, though, you've got a large group that suddenly took to the air. Right now it's a flowing system where you've got aircraft constantly taking off, landing, or transiting to or from a target. With this proposal in place you'd wind up with clumps of planes instead of a stream.
Instead of putting a traffic cop on the runway to limit re-up time, limit troops and ord. The supply system we have now allows for unlimited bombs, rockets, fuel, and troops to take fields. The strat system produces these unlimited numbers regardless of country size. It's a factor that hasn't changed since Warbirds. Here's a few ideas along these lines that would slow down the land-grab.
1) Ramp up the number of troops required to take a field based on distance from your troop training facility.
2) Change the number of troops needed to invade a field based on field size. It's logical, the bigger the field the more people required to take it and run it.
3) The farther you get from your supply lines, the less replacements and ord you receive.
4) Implement dynamic supply ships as more of an incentive to take ports. If Bishops take P22, supply ships would steam from the closest Bish port to P22. This would eliminate, or reduce, the supply line problem above. It would also give subs and aircraft a more target-rich environment. Want to slow down the enemy advance into your territory? Blow some supply ships.
Without enough bombs and rockets, you can't pound fields flat enough to take them. And with troops in short supply, there's no way to actually take the place. Which results in the largest country slowing down as they over-extend their supply lines. Once they take a port or two, that lack of supplies isn't such a concern. Though to avoid saturating the only two ports each country has, a supply port might warrant creation. Aside from taking the hefty burden off the limited number of ports, it would also provide a hugely tempting target of stockpiled supplies.
Perks could also be used as I've suggested before. The under-dog country would have perk costs reduced based on number disparity and the amount of fields still in friendly hands. The more people you have in a country, the higher the perk cost. Say the Bish have 200 people, while everyone else has ~80 or so. What's stopping the Bish from upping several dozen Tempests to maul everybody? Nothing currently. Double the perk cost (and reward) though and it would keep rare planes rare. Meanwhile, the Knights and Rooks are at a disadvantage numbers-wise. So their perk costs drop a bit to level the playing field.
Thoughts? Flames?
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/lie.gif)
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Originally posted by HiTech
how come "Insert fav plane here" is limited and not the "Insert fav dweeb complaint plane here" is not.
Answer: Because that is the planeset that "I HiTech" feel is appropriate. Now shutup and Color!
I also do not feel that limiting a customers flying time is acceptable. What kind of havoc would this create if a mission is upping. the first 10 planes up but then the other 10 dont get off the ground, mission is a bust for all 20 players.
However limiting planesets could be fun for all. The lower number sides have an equalizing effect. And maybe some of the guys who are new and prefer to fly these late war uber planes will jump ship and fly there favorite ride in another country. This would also allow squads to stay together. A better idea IMHO.
RHIN0
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The proposed system seems to penalize people who fly more sortes per hour while rewarding timid behavior.
The people who "fly to live" and use the re-arm pad to get those massive kill streaks would hardly be affected.
On the other hand, those players who fly a lot of sortes in a short time could potentially see a massive impact on how often they could fly. People who don't want to switch countries due to squad affiliation would probably have to log off.
Even worse, it would unfairly penalize an entire country in those cases where the two smaller countries ignore each other and attack the larger country (this happens).
I don't like it.
Encouraging people to log off, to "fix" a different problem which causes people to log off, isn't really fixing anything.
HOWEVER:
The basic idea--in a revised form--has potential. Rather than ARENA-WIDE, perhaps the system should be programed to monitor local numbers, eg. if a fight in one particular part of the arena gets overly imbalanced, the take-off limiter kicks in for the local airfields ONLY. This way pilots would still be free to take off elsewhere.
This could limit numbers and might actually preserve fights that would otherwise be ended due to one side having an overwhelming numerical advantage. While it would still penalize the people who have more flights per hour, at least it wouldn't be so bad as what HiTech initially proposed.
The system also has to have some delay in initiating the "Death timeout" in order to allow fights to "grow" properly.
In addition to all this, the Clipboad would have to have some kind of tool showing the status of the local airfields so that pilots could see at a glance which fields have "limited takeoff", and so they could minitor how long during an imbalanced fight they have before the "limiter" takes effect. This to prevent people in a furball from being caught by it unaware.
I would also go so far as to make Sector Counters undestroyable to better monitor local conditions; only positional radar should be able to be destroyed.
J_A_B
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I dont believe I like the concept.
Hitech, Consider this.....
Perhaps on a hypothetical night
100 Bishops
100 Knights
125 Rooks
75 Bishops fighting 65 Rooks
75 Knights fighting 60 Rooks
25 Bishops fighting 25 Knights
So the Rooks could in this situation have greater resorces, yet would be out numbered on each front. In addition they would have a penalty for feilding the largest numbers.
Your proposal doesnt seem to be a help in the above situation and its not really far fetched for that situation to happen.
I would have to place myself as someone that would prefer a positive reward system, rather than a penalty system as you propose.
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If this would be implemented, Perhaps it sould be known as the "Rook Rule" ;)
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The major problem with the "plane limiting" is that so many planes share ICONS that the side with less numbers wouldn't even be able to tell that the system is in effect.
Change the ICON system and maybe it could work. The enemy needs to be able to directly SEE any system in action.
That comming from somebody who always flies a plane that would surely be affected y that system....it wouldn't always beperked, only to one country with too many people so it'd still be freely available if I had no perk points. I'd just have to switch countries for a bit.....I could probably live with that. Doesn't mean I'd like it though
Personally I question if anything "needs" to be done at all--but if something WILL be done, then I'd hope it's something which doesn't ruin the fun of the game.
J_A_B
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Originally posted by Ohio330
Well, you wanted the truth... I don't like the idea.
I think there is no "incentive" other than negative incentive
for people to change sides. Try radically reducing the perk
requirements for planes in the lesser sides.
Oh, and I also think your idea is going to be really messing
organized squad ops. We would never know what side our
squaddies are on.
perks are for jerks ;-> lots of foklks give a ratsbutt about perks.
the only time I ever use them is when we are SO outnumbered
that u have to fly a jet just to play the game,(rare occasions)
I think Hitechs Idea is brilliant (yankee must have thought it up):D :D
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To all!! Sorry I've not been in the air for the past few months. Certainly have missed many. I'm heartened to see, so far, this discussion being carried out with such a reasonable tone. Makes things so much easier and more enjoyable.
When I began AH after AW folded, I have forgotten the month and year, we Bishops enjoyed, flaunted, and reveled in a large numerical advantage as I recall (or at least as a newbie I enjoyed, flaunted, reveled etc . . .). For sometime it continued. (Apologies ahead of time if my recollections are wrong.) It was a blast winning resets. When I was last flying towards mid-March, blowing through another country wasn't as fun as it used to be (don't recollect too many times Bish achieved that during the 1st quarter of this year though), but winning a "hard won" reset was very satisfying and fun.
I state the above only to highlight that what I enjoyed most about AH changed over time as I gained a little facility as a pilot. Also, the idea of "competitive balance" (probably badly worded but you get my drift) when it doesn't occur on it's own may elicit howls of dissatisfaction from those whose fun is . . . well, less fun after the leveling occurs.
HT, since you asked, I'm in favor of doing something that will make a "fight" out a map that otherwise would be steamrolled. But as I think about it, I don't which was less fun, losing or stalemate. Just thought about it, losing is no fun.
I'd tend towards ---> Originally posted by Soda
I think something more subtle might even things up a bit more on the longer term picture. Something along the lines of what Kweassa suggested.
As to the details, either to perk, or to eliminate from the planeset planes that allow a country to make the most out of their numerical advantage. I'd opt for elimination rather than perk because it would afford some not insurmountable challenges & very satisfying ones too for the putative winner.
As a new pilot I would have hated what I just suggested. Now, (I do hope to be back in the air in not too) long, I'd enjoy the challenge.
Best to All
Hap
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Dont go by straight numbers. Go by the number of enemies in a given country. No matter their country. That has the extra benifit of defensive missions not impacting sorti rate.
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I can see definate merit in what you are proposing HiTech. But on the same hand, I can see that it could have some serious downfalls as many have stated about players being trapped and the numbers shifting too drastically and throwing an inbalance in another direction.
I would be willing to give it a try and see, but are more inclined to believe that the perk system can be adjusted to be an even stronger controller of numbers yet still not be quite as harsh on the short term. As the perk system currently is, as you become more of the underdog, perk points are more and more easily earned, and perk rides become cheaper and cheaper. Maybe just increase this changing effect to a more dramatic level, maybe even to 1.5 times what it is at now or even 2 times. I don't know the exact method that is being used at this time, so I cannot accurately suggest what the multiplier should be. Maybe your most popular planes could be assigned a fractional perk point cost, so that when numbers are equal, they are free. But as numbers get more and more unbalanced, they would start to cost a point or two. I know that some will say that this low cost will not mean anything, but with the earning of perk points also being on the very low side, could be costly.
The idea about the wait times only penalizes the over powered side. Where as the adjusted perk system, and the current perk system, punishes the over powered some and benefits the weaker as well.
All this is just my 2 cents. And I am glad to be able to offer it and have someone listening. I you, Hitech, for making the efforts to try and improve the game for all. I brought my squad from a game, where the management just did not care. So you have strengthened my believe that I truly made the right decision in calling Aces High our new HOME.
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Originally posted by SlapShot
JB73 ...
I read it as ...
For every 1% over 0% you get 1 minute time out.
Rooks are %0.142857143 over, which would result in a 1 minute time out for the Rooks.
but it is only shown in a decimal format... do the math manually it is 14%
considering it is divided by the "minutes per percent over" it makes sence that way. my only question was if he was going to use the number in seconds (was it divided by 60 somewhere along the way) or if it was % of a minute which then equals 23.3333 seconds.
im still working on a formula where if the total arena number is less than 350 there is no wait.
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I don't think this is a good idea from a squad perspective....
Some squads are dedicated to a particular country. If the current country the squad is in gets over populated, then they can't fly when needed... So they switch countries... 15 minutes later, a couple squad mates log in and need to be organized over to the new country... Do this back and forth a few times and the squad is all screwed up.
IMO - The way to balance the system is to change gameplay to something other than steamroller for the reset. It's obvious to everyone that strat means nothing to gameplay.. it's simply a weight of numbers thing that wins the reset... and for what? some lousy perk points that are good for nothing.
If there was a strategic aspect with a working supply system that negated the steamroller effect, I think you would see less hording. Historicly, the Rooks run HUGE squad operations on Sunday night, with the sole intention of winning a reset. The reason these RJO (Rook Joint Ops) are so popular is that the gang-bang horde pig-pile method of attack works... Just keep suicide boming, vultch running through AAA until the enemy is crushed. Collect 70 Perk points... hoo ray :rolleyes:
Make a supply system that works from the HQ out... a trickle-down of available aircraft, ords and troops. Give players only X lives per hour to reduce the suicide rate.
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Hitech,
I think the major thought here is what you want to accomplish by "evening out the numbers". Is it your intent to never have resets? If not, then I would submit that in a 3 country scenario you have effectively done little.
If this were a two country arena and one country always had 50% more flyers, I can see the logic in your proposal. But how do you counteract a 2 on 1 country scenario?
B=150
K=150
R=200
This scenario could yield 300 enemy on 200 rooks, as often countries ignore one of their fronts and gang up on a single country. Would it be fair that the rooks in this case would have to wait a few minutes before upping to defend against both the knits and the Bish onslaught?
Seems to me you cannot equalize unilaterally in a 3 country arena, if it were two countries with one dominant you have come up with an excellent remedy.
But this is not a 2 country scenario.
Balsy
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Time limits will not work. Not everyone dies or ups at the same time. 30 secs 1 minute, will not make a diference. You will still have the same number of people up at the same time (unless the low # sides kill at a great rate). It will also make people avoid fights when the odds are not in their favor.
I think limiting plane sets or perking plane sets would give people a reason to switch.
Don't try to 'force' fix the problem. It will fix itself if you give it time. Give people a reason to fix it faster by themselfs, or get a new server for the BBS. The current one will not be able to handle the whines.
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I accept long periods of flying time to get to a target of my choice, where im twiddling my thumbs in the air.
I cant accept long periods of sitting in a tower if im understanding this correctly just to fly a plane.
I like some have mentioned above, fly to fly with my Squaddies. My alternative to not having to wait is to log off the game and go play in an FPS or WW2Online.
Sooner or later, id be questioning whether or not it was worth my while loggin in at all if I was to get a series of stoppages because of numbers and despite loving the game would probably close my account and use the money to play something that doesnt restrict my gameplay enjoyment.
If im saying it and others are saying it, how many of those who do not post on the BBS at all and who make up the majority of the player base are saying it?
I dont like offering opinions when I myself fail to also offer a solution. But I think this would seriously hamper my wish as a paying gamer and I would hope that this "solution" will be more carefully considered.
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Originally posted by JB35
, so that when ToD does come out in 2 weeks we will all be set in that frame of flying time and as such ,
so no one does get flustered and log , but instead accepts the fact that what is coming around the corner for everyone .
Naw, not for everyone. I for one am not remotely interested in TOD.
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Originally posted by Grimm
If this would be implemented, Perhaps it sould be known as the "Rook Rule" ;)
Errr... nevermind it's not worth it. Do what you need to do HT.
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Why not make it totaly free on which side you want to fly!!
The "war" will then be on the chatline, where it belongs!
Us other peacefull minds will then just enjoy to fly above it all over the blue skies....
:)
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How about if a teams perk multiplier gets below .8 turn on friendly collisions for that team.
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my squad rests on the rooks. i dont think i would like that idea to well due to the fact that half my squad would not follow if we switched countries. personally i dont care what side im on and would prefer the side with less numbers.....but i have 25 other people to think about. if there was a time limit tween flights imposed...i would take my squad to bish or nits but suffer a loss of at least half my squad. :(
i will start chatting with my squad and see what they think about switching countries in light on the new situation.:confused:
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Bad idea. You do NOT want to start limiting any one countries flight time. Great way to start losing customers. I remember some days when I log on and the bish/rook have say 100 pilots, and knights have 120. The thought of waiting in the tower after I'm shot down sounds horrid.
I DO like the fact that you are thinking about this issue. I just feel that this is the WRONG idea.
How about instead, when numbers are out of whack like that (I would go with 30%) give pilot's PERKS if they switch from the higher # country to the lesser. Say 20 or 25 perks to change sides. THAT might be enough incentive for some to make the change.
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Cant say i jumped for joy when I read HT's idea, but it may be worth trying. It would least be a noble experiment (ok, noble's kind of a strong word....but I cant think of another;) )
During certain times I would probably get quite frustrated with waiting as my base got hammered....but then I probably wouldn't be in that situation if my base was getting pounded. Besides I fly Knits :D
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I would bet that doubling or tripling (heck, maybe even do 4x or 5x, like vegas baby!)the perk mod would would help. Same system as already here - just more "reward"
Start throwing more perk planes into the mix as they develop..
I'm sure it will even out.
This way no one penalized flight times, ect.....
Could work, but might just be a whole nother can of worms.
All I know is that within 20 seconds of myself letting it known on open channel that the bish had a 21.16 perk point bonus - about 10 folks jumped over and messed my farming all up.
We only had 5 folks on to start with.
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flyingaround,
Wouldn't work. They vulch for the Rook all evening and then switch to Knights to get the bonus perkies. Then they log off. Next day after work they switch back to Rooks and go back to vulching.
I will say I'm not real fond of HiTechs idea the more I think about it. I like that they are thinking about it though. I'm trying to come up with viable solutions.
I did like J_A_B's idea about local timed delays a bit more, but I don't know how practical it is from a programming standpoint.
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I still hold that the perk icons are the single biggest flaw with the perk system. Those icons prevent the perk planes from being seen as a reward. Without them being a reward, perk points don't matter so no modification of the perk earning or pricing system will have any real effect.
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A question or two.
This time limit would be imposed on a pilot after landing a mission or after getting shot down or both?
Would there be a delay if you landed to rearm?
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Originally posted by nopoop
Ok, gave it some more thought.
Restricting a players ability to fly is a bad idea IMO. Now lets take whats available now to keep outnumbered countries pilots from logging.
The more the merrier ingame is the goal.
I can only give myself as an example. I don't care if my country is outnumbered. I'll find a place to play.
I only log when DAR is disabled. DAR is a game killer for me, I don't care about numbers.
Now when your being hammered one of the first thing that goes is DAR.
Why not use your current thought of unbalanced numbers and apply it to DAR instead ??
If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??
Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??
That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.
Got me thinking. Here is a better solution.
The greater the numbers, the LONGER it takes for things to reup. i.e. Vehicle Hangers, Fighter Hangers, Ord, H.Q. etc.
The smaller the numbers, the SHORTER it takes for things to reup.
Thinking this through now. If you are being overwhelmed, and your VH ups every 10 min, instead of 20 (whatever) that gives you an advantage. If your town respawns faster, or your FH's up faster, that also would give you and advantage vs. the #'s. If you kill the Vehicle Hanger at the greater #'s field, and it takes 30min, instead of 20 (whatever) that would help slow them down. ALSO one or two pilots from the lesser number side can pork nme fields, and their taking longer to reup might just help stem the rolling tide.
Hmmm.....still considering this. Ideas? Anyone?
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Down time could actually be a positive thing for squadrons.
Gives you time to get everyone back from the last run. Pick a target, decide on planes, etc and then launch as a group.
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I think that you are approaching this from the wrong direction.
It should not be about limiting. It should be about 'value adding'
What do I GET from leaving my beloved side, to balance out?
I want a portable AAA machine gun to shoot vulchers!
I want an ACK ACK tower, and four trucks with QUAD 40mms or carrier style pom poms! ALL controlled by ME, to all shoot at whatever im shooting at!
I want a secret weapon of the luftwabble to save the war! And I want you to release that nice ultra high octane gas to give me more kick. My 1 perk point Spit 14 or P47M or 109K with ultraubermeba special boostenhoffen!
That would even up the odds.. yes/no?
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I don't post alot to the BB's but this one caught my attention...
First... I do not think this is a great idea for all the reasons listed previous to this post and....
Second... As someone who has worked with numerous customers and employees.... to take something away (in this case limit) which was previously freely available or attainable has never (in my 25+ years in business and 40+ years in life) produced a desireable result.
I believe the answers lies somewhere in the incentive side of the equation v the penalty side.
I'll be here either way... thats just my 2 cents
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I kinda like the perk/dar idea. Low country costs go down, high ones go up, and some planes previously unperked start costing, while low side has more plane options open to them due to lower cost.
Dar , at HQ for low side gets harder the more outnumbered , all the way up to indestructable, (dar always up).
Something along those lines, but either way I'll give whatever happens a try, cause this does need fixin.
my .5 cents ( with exchange rate)
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just unperk Spit14 tempest TA152 F4U4 F4UC for the lowest country when the highest one gets to high
that will have a HUGE effect:aok
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Not a bad idea. AW's zone-limit was similiar, although not side specific. Keep in mind the side-effect will be people on the advantaged side choosing to fly longer single sorties via re-arms and high endurance planes with large fuel loadouts. It will change the plane demographics during the restriction period to side-step the inter-sortie time-outs.
Zazen
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Originally posted by Toad
A question or two.
This time limit would be imposed on a pilot after landing a mission or after getting shot down or both?
Would there be a delay if you landed to rearm?
Good points. My vote..never on rearming.. yes on shot down 50% on landing.
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I dont know.
Id rather see something where no bomber or attack planes are available at frontline bases (those adjacent to enemy bases) affect the side with 20% more people.
In other words no bombs or rockets at frontline bases.
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Another thought; I understand the whole "point" of the game for some is "getting the reset".
Clearly, numbers advantage has a major effect in helping to "get the reset".
Reading the suggestions above, I think consideration has to be given to the "point of the game".
In short, if you make it ever more difficult for the side with numbers to get the reset, and folks DO change sides...... you may not get many resets.
Just a thing to consider; I'm not sure you want to create an automatic function that leads towards stalemate. At least if "reset" is your "point".
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I think this is great; the fact that a CO of a company is asking his customers what they think about a certain change he is thinking about implementing.
What I am not so sure of is the idea itself. Restricting the use of a product that customers use is never a good idea. Altho its for only a short time, many dont have alot of time to use HTC's product/game. So I can garrantee that will be a problem and a complaint right from the start.
The numbers thing right now does suck. I love to fly with the people on the Rooks because as I've said before I have many friends who are on at the same time I am on and they are also Rook. Because of that I stay rook for the most part. I've been working on some of them to Go Knit with me and some have, some have not. I can think of atleast one squad off the top of my head that I am sure I can persuade to go nit. And a few more players who would most likely follow. This I think..................
Is what we need to do. Players need to take the initiative IMHO to resolve this problem if it is one to them I hate flying on the side with the most players. Sometimes 100 more players! Which is why I am looking to move to the Nits along with a few others and hopefully my squad will go along too.
This problem really wont take all that much effort to resolve. All we need is a few of you guys out there willing to help and make the move and we've got a good start.
With that being said I am going to return to the Nits and let my squad know. I'm also going to talk to a few of the squads I am in good with and see if I can't finnaly get them to move over as well.
Again. I think its GREAT that Dale is concerned about numbers in the MA. It shows us once again that he and his crew really do care about his customers.
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A few other things to consider before even contemplating implimenting restrictions based on raw roster numbers...
1) What about people on extended AFK? Lots of people stay connected to AH virtually 24/7, even going so far as throwing up their AFK tag to take a 4-hour nap. This is espeically true if their country seems close to a reset, they want to be "online" to get the reset perks. Perhaps you would need some sort of 'inactivity time-out timer" coded into the game, that would boot people who haven't registered any input in 30 minutes?
2) What about the plethora of dual-accounters that have a 2nd account permanently logged-on with their laptop on an enemy country for the purpose of vectoring themselves and teamates to CV's and their 'favorite' players on the enemy team? While hard to estimate the numbers without looking up IP addresses my conservative guess, based on some long-term carefull observations and note-taking, is this number is significant, perhaps 10 to 20 'snoop' accounts at any given time, mostly poised against the 'advantaged' team obviously.
3) Consider that to a large degree numerical disparities are handled internally by the players thru some common sense. When one country is advantaged the other two countries tend to focus more on the advantaged country than one another. So, in actuality the raw numbers may indicate a disparity, but on the map the numbers are actually equal or even less than equal when viewed from the perspective of 'opposition' facing each country.
Overall, I would caution against implimenting this idea without some consideration as to the ramifications upon gameplay and various ways players can manipulate the raw roster numbers to cause the time-out imposition on other teams. I warn against being naive and underestimating how conniving a determined individual or group can be when properly motivated.
Zazen
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I am in the "don't think limiting peoples ability to fly is a good thing" camp.
The perk multiplier already provides an incentive , but not everyone cares about perks.
What if the perk multiplier was also linked to score , as it seems many people do care about score. The newer players might see that as way of improving their score if they changed to the underdog country.
It also may encourage a broader use of the planeset. I was quite surprised at what a difference the perk factor is when flying for a country with lower numbers. Flying for knights last night I was buying F4u-4's at 20 points - what a bargain :) At the time they were 70 points for rooks.
So at least you are then "incenting" two camps , those that care about perks , and those that care about score.
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I dont think this will work HiTech... We need people to want to switch sides, not force them. We need better incentives... Simple economics :)
One way of doing this is to have less perk points to the side with %100 people and more to the lowest side. I'm talking a substantial amount of perk points.
For instance, the team with 200 players will have a .1 or even 0 perk point bonus, while the lower will have 3 or even 4.
The point is, people will want to switch to the other side since theyre getting tons of perkies for kills.
Overall, WE NEED BETTER INCENTIVES!
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Originally posted by Redd
I am in the "don't think limiting peoples ability to fly is a good thing" camp.
The perk multiplier already provides an incentive , but not everyone cares about perks.
What if the perk multiplier was also linked to score , as it seems many people do care about score. The newer players might see that as way of improving their score if they changed to the underdog country.
It also may encourage a broader use of the planeset. I was quite surprised at what a difference the perk factor is when flying for a country with lower numbers. Flying for knights last night I was buying F4u-4's at 20 points - what a bargain :) At the time they were 70 points for rooks.
So at least you are then "incenting" two camps , those that care about perks , and those that care about score.
Yes, we brought this up a while back. I thought it was a good idea. The upper echelon players can get perks by the thousands fairly easily. Perk points are a good incentive but not everyone flies perk planes. By applying the perk modifier also to the score formula you are adding an incentive to a whole new segment of the population. Typically those who monitor their score but do not care about perks are players who either don't fly perk planes regularly, or have enough perk points saved up to fly jets until the end of time. This would include alot of your upper-echelon fighter types who tend to have the largest impact on fights per capita.
Zazen
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To those who consider the proposal a restriction or denial this would be overcome in 3 mouse clicks ie change country.
Not checked but I suspect most of the naysayers are Rooks who participate in RJO and dont want their Sunday fun interrupted.
I like the idea may give some of us time to consider why we got nailed by that 202 in our Lanc formation while making a brew, before upping a B17 formation to the same target.
Adjuster
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still think it's a simple matter of greed and rewards...even if a pilot doesn't fly for perks...knowing that he can make about 20+ perk points a kill will draw a few.
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Originally posted by nopoop
Ok, gave it some more thought.
Restricting a players ability to fly is a bad idea IMO. Now lets take whats available now to keep outnumbered countries pilots from logging.
The more the merrier ingame is the goal.
I can only give myself as an example. I don't care if my country is outnumbered. I'll find a place to play.
I only log when DAR is disabled. DAR is a game killer for me, I don't care about numbers.
Now when your being hammered one of the first thing that goes is DAR.
Why not use your current thought of unbalanced numbers and apply it to DAR instead ??
If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??
Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??
That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.
This sounds good to me. I'm used to being beat up. It's nothing new to me. Having flown for ROOKS for about a month during a SOLO Hiatus I found that they are just better organised than Knights. Why penalize them for being smarter. Bishes I can't speak to because I didn't fly with them.
HT, it is certainly your call. I for one appreciate and applaud the effort to adress the numbers problem. But to be honest , as a knight , I don't think the one side should have to give up time in the air because the other 2 countries can't or won't or don't know how to get the same type of organzation as Rooks.
I think although I dont have real proof , that the rooks out number the Knights and Bishes on a consistant basis. Daily I see them with more than the other 2 , and at atimes , it is a significant amount. As it turns out , today I really paid attention to what was going on on the map. It was a gang bang of nothing. The knights absolutley refused to get teamed up and get organized. Thats certainly not the rooks fault.
NoPoops idea about the DAR is my suggestion as well. I figure numbers wont change but I would like to see where to fight.
Again , it is your call. Limiting time is risky IMO. Newbie gets logged in for the first time..Jump in a plane for the rooks..Get's vulched and has to wait to reup. He may not like that and decide not to play. Isolated maybe..but it only takes a few for the word to get out.:)
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SERVER: Plane selection limited to aircraft with an ENY value of 50 or higher due to side disparity
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Originally posted by dedalos
I think this is forcing people. Limiting playing time is not a good idea, IMO. What would happened if you get killed trying to take off? You have to wait and if it happens again, get pissed and log???
What if instead of limiting plaing time, you limit plane sets. If a country has over - lets say - 10% no more 51s and LA7s. Over 20%, no more spits, niks etc. The planes and the % can be figured out after some analisys. Also, you could do it by years. Limmit the 1944 set then the 1943 etc.
Who knows, we may see a rook hord coming down on us flying 202s and spit Is , LOL :D :aok
I think that you are on the right track, but that your solution is too complicated. Let's keep Hitech's time penalty but add some options.
I would rather see it this way when lopsided numbers reach a specific trigger level:
You take off in a fighter. You eventually lose the fighter. You can wait 15 minutes to take another fighter, or you could launch immediately in another class, such as a bomber or vehicle. Whatever the result of that sortie, no matter how short (in other words you couldn't just take off and land to reset fighter access), you can't get in another fighter for 15 minutes from the time you lost the first one. Loss of bombers or GVs bears no time penalty.
What this means is that after a horde hits a base, those guys who get shot down will either be coming back in a bomber or a vehicle. Maybe they won't be coming back at all because bombers and GVs take a while to go anywhere. But, at least they can still play. I think most guys will be back up in the bombers and GVs instantly, and that will greatly reduce the offensive power resulting from a numbers imbalance.
I think this would work and no one would be denied their opportunity to play. Only their options are curtailed. I would also bump up the player threshold to 25% as I've seen 20% shifts over the course of 30 minutes.
My regards,
Widewing
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Originally posted by JB73
Unfortunately, the only way sometime to clear a "spawn camper" is to spawn multiple people in quick succession so that someone gets a turret around to kill or disable said camper. .
Couldn’t you take 2 or 3 of you Squad mates or buddies to kill the pesky spawn campers?
Originally posted by JB73
Another scenario includes a NOE base attack. In the current situation a base far behind lines can be attacked, and many miss it. The few that do go to defend try as they might sometimes get killed. If they are unable to take off again in an attempt to save the base, it is possible the base could be lost.
Interesting point.
Guess your other countrymen could go defend for you?
Originally posted by JB73
I don’t want to bring up the ugly topic of HO's, but this scenario I believe would only encourage poor tactics by the attackers. Take a few cannon planes HO every plane that tries to get up, and then soon no one will be able to defend. That is an unrealistic tactic, that I thing would adversely affect game play in a bad way.
Unrealistic? How so?
If you kill all the NME trying to get up at said base…wouldn’t they all be dead?
Oh…I see…you mean the “Game” aces high…the one where you can up 20 times hoping the Vulchers or campers will eventually Die or auger trying to vulch said players?
Originally posted by JB73
Another question about this is would the time limit between changing countries be changed? If I don’t want to be limited, and change to knights, but a bunch also change, I could be limited again. Unfortunately with the current time limit I would not be able to change again. If the limit is changed too short you could run into the problems we have had in the past with country hoppers.
Would require some crafty planning.
A lot of discussion about “Squad or Squad ops being effected. I think there are enough hired guns that would be the “Switchers”
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HT - I think the idea will work but it's going to also put subtle pressure on game play. Players on the high-numbers side will tend to shy away from getting into big furballs and fly more conservatively to avoid having to wait. At least on the short term "ganging" will likely be more prevalent and in that circumstance the feeling on the low-numbers sides about being ganged will just be more pointed.
I like the idea of increasing the vulnerability of field resources on the high-numbers side, which I think has been said before in this thread, but I don't think it will work alone. What might also work, is if it's coupled with late war, normally not perked rides, needing small amounts of perks for the high-numbers side (la7, p51d, 109G10, ki-84, etc.). Link the perk changes directly to the numbers so that as a side's numbers increase, the late war rides start to cost something and if the numbers disparity continues to increase, have the costs of late war rides go up.
This will "fair up" the fight and give the low numbers sides the reward of extra perks. 2 birds with 1 stone.
Cheers,
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So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
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Looks like a Rube Goldberg fix. :)
What is the current breakdown of players for each country?
If they are heavily unbalanced, why not post a thread asking for a couple of medium or large squads to switch for a month or two? That was how the Rook disadvantage was solved - some squads switched.
Numerical advantage does not equate to cooperation. It is the action of large squads and cooperative missions that force resets on small maps. The countries at a disadvantage naturally force a two-front war for the one with the numerical advantage.
There is usually one reasonably bright person on (among the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds online) who will hit the barracks, ordnance and radar of the larger force to take the wind out of their sails.
All in all, the game works pretty well as you designed it without adding a bureaucratic affirmative action plan.
I think simply asking for a few squads to switch will work, but I'm usually wrong about everything, according to my wife.
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BUT .....
I will add .....
A three sided arena was kinda sorta asking for it. Add another side. And switch to card suits, fer cryin' out loud.
Yes, you then have potential opponents that can be seperated easier by a third (and fourth). But that's a good thing. :aok
P.S. "The race to reset" promotes countries ganging on the lesser side. If there was no "win", you'd see less of that.
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
I think the rate of return on your incentive thus far are not so much an indictment of the incentive itself but a commentary on country fidelity. Just looking at the roster you quickly see all but a very small fraction of the players are in a squadron, those squadrons are in a country and have likely been in that same country for a very long time. There are examples of squadrons who switch countries en masse, but they usually restrict this movement to a camp to camp basis for logistical reasons.
What this would do in large part is penalize dedicated squadrons for their country fidelity and create a potential logisitcal nightmare for those who do rotate, most on a by-need basis, but on a regular schedule. While creating some dissatisfied customers and some antipathy, they will still be highly unlikely to move for ANY short-sighted reason such as a re-plane timer. The people most likely to move are the newbies, who have yet to find a squadron, therefore have lower country fidelity, but who also have the lowest impact on gameplay per capita. Your average newbie will be highly inconvenienced by a re-plane timer and this concern will likely outweight any other factor, unlike the high-fidelity veteran of a squadron. So, while increasing the numbers of the disadvantaged side, you are not actually increasing their effectiveness or quality by a similiar ratio. Not only that but the change will likely be very short-term.
On the other hand, by applying the perk modifier to the score formula something else will happen. Some dedicated squadrons on the advantaged side that enjoy flying for rank/score will re-think their country affiliation on a long-term basis. As well, your upper-echelon players who enjoy ranking highly will be far more likely to go to a country where it is easier to do so. So, in this way, not only do you increase the numbers of the disadvantaged team, but you increase the quality of those numbers by an even greater relative ratio, and you do it for the long-term.
Zazen
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1. I appriciate that fact that HT is monitoring our game play concerns.
2. I dont like the idea based on reasons of gameplay effects already outlined. and ie. it seems a little too "heavy handed" or 'liberal'
3. I had given some thought to this general subject (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1331763#post1331763) and I agree with some of the other posts that making changes to perk awards would go a long way.
Originally posted by Murdr 08-06-2004
So right now the perk modifier changes the value of the cost column. Make it apply to the ENY column too. I think that would change the dynamics of things. Out of the suggestions of using perks in some way, I like that one.
Mabey this approach is too conservative. In the long run though, if a persons flying habits were flying La7 for the high # country, it would be very hard for them to accumulate perk points. Add to that if a threshold existed based on the modifer to nuscence perk the big late war planes, and its harder yet.
Keep in mind that you only need to convince a small segment that they should fly with the underdog because: but their net effect of reducing one countries roster and padding the others in essence doubles their effect. If its 150/150/190 (the high# country up by 40) and only 5 pilots from each switch to the high number country it becomes 145/145/200(the high# country up by 55). The same pricipal works in the opposite direction.
5. Numbers are never going to maintain balance. Im in favor of whatever makes that imbalance more fluid, and cycle around between the countries in shorter time spans. It only becomes a problem when it goes out of balance so far that the figurative 'numbers pendulem' gets stuck in one place.
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It could work. Would be worth a try at least.
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lol, geez 6 post went up while i was typing and looking up past threads.
Following the 'Link the numbers to not only perks but score awards:' It would be quite funny to see how people who are flying in the hord would react if their score was awarded 1/3rd of a kill based on the other 5 people that had also shot it.
Scene from Battle of Britain 1969
"Thats three of you that got him"
"Three?"
"A third of a kill that is... A third"
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With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.
CYA UP,
PUCK
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Originally posted by PuckHead
With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.
CYA UP,
PUCK
I agree, human nature always reacts more favourably to an incentive than a penalty. They might "bow down" to the penalty , having no choice, but they won't like it.
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Originally posted by PuckHead
With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.
CYA UP,
PUCK
Not sure about that, I'd pay 50 bucks a month for AH and still think I was getting a bargain. Compared to what I spend on Cable TV with all the movie channels I never watch (because I'm flying) 15 bucks is chump change. I worked it out, I do the 6 month deal, I fly an average of 50 hours a month, that works out to 25 cents an hour. Compare that to the MAYBE 20 hours a month I spend watching the news, History Channel, Discovery Wings and the odd Dallas Stars game at $100/month, that's $5/hour. We won't even talk about the guys who fly 200-300+ hours a month. They're getting AH for 5 cents an hour. ;) Not much else you can get for a nickle these days, and we didn't even have to buy the game, it was a free download. :aok
Zazen
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I'm on a hotel connection right now with a time limit, so I'll try to keep it very short.
I don't much like the idea, personally. Forcing people to sit idle/log off or change sides isn't a very good choice. Many people *won't* change sides. They'll log off instead. True, this would solve the "problem" of one side having a huge numbers advantage, but I think it is solving it the wrong way.
I actually think the "perk point adjustment" thing is a good idea for balancing the numbers, but it needs to be taken to a greater extreme than it is now. For example, I think that if people were flying Tempests and 262's for much less than they can get now even with a large disparity in numbers, that would solve the problem as well.
For one, even if one side had 200 people and another side had 80, if the side with 80 were in 262's that would basically even up disparity in numbers with an equal disparity in plane quality.
I don't even know if that makes sense, but I am not in favor of actually forcing people to sit idle in a game that they pay for. They should be able to at least do whatever they want, even if they want to continue to fly for a side that has a tremendous numbers advantage.
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Well first off I would say HT do some statistical analysis. You guys have the server logs and can actually tell when a huge imbalance occurs or does not.
Sundays there is a huge imbalance. This is due to the fact that a large percentage of Rook Squads have their squad night sunday. Knights and Bishops definitely turn out lower numbers and in a few cases posted on the board some squads actually avoid sunday night.
Then again the Knights and Bishops who do come on have come up with some solid team work, strategy, and tactics and use the 262 to stop the Rooks on sunday night (past several weeks). Last sunday the Knights siezed 2 bases and then held the Rooks back only losing one base back to them after hours of effort.
On other nights I am not sure the imbalance is as huge and might actually be starting to balance out more to some extent .. or that is one possible perception. Then again there will always be a country with the most and one with the least.
But I would set up a logging program to see how many pilots fly for a set period, and how many hops and compare. Also see how many people are with signed up under each country.
The solution you are proposing has some interesting possibilities. But in absence of statistical data can't really tell for certain how extensive the problem is or is not.
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Originally posted by Urchin
I'm on a hotel connection right now with a time limit, so I'll try to keep it very short.
I don't much like the idea, personally. Forcing people to sit idle/log off or change sides isn't a very good choice. Many people *won't* change sides. They'll log off instead. True, this would solve the "problem" of one side having a huge numbers advantage, but I think it is solving it the wrong way.
What if… Each zone had an allotted number of flight slots. If the slots were currently full…then you would have to launch from another base say 50 to 75 miles away or wait till some one else moved to a different zone.
This could work well to disperse the Hoards. Because you would have to wait…or chose another base of operations…The new base of operations being far enough from the original base that your fuel would be rather low by the time you made it to the zone you were originally trying to Hoard…err fly in. :D
Could work to deter hoarding or gangbanging.
Aces High with its zone structure could maybe benefit from this setup.
BTW…this isn’t new. Nor is it my own idea. ;)
But I loved it. :)
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
Your right sir. [size=huge]The "Perk" solution has not and will not work.[/size] It has played out. And the results are the proof.
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Top of my head (haven't read other posts), I don't like the idea of time limits between flights. Would be more of a pain in the arse than flying against numbers - I'd likely log and start playing IL-2 offline, not what HTC wants I imagine.
Again off the top of my head, I think updating perkage would be a better idea. Both in terms of the multiplier for side numbers, and in terms of the cost of a lot of the standard aircraft. Make flying a lala in a crowd a risky proposition, and I think you'd see less of it.
Just my $.02.
Now let's talk about this clear, shameless Axis Bias (TM).
Cheers,
Scherf
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What's the point in paying for a game if I can NOT play. I enjoy the company of the people I fly with. If I can NOT fly with the people I want to then again why should I pay for a game I can NOT enjoy.
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Regarding the Zone discussion (Zone limitations originally of AW due to network/server limitations) Dont forget that there is a variety of MA maps.
If slots were based on planes upping from a field, I think I would be ticked off about the effects of that. If I were on the low numbered side, I would never be able to get a high enough alt. The portion of the horde that couldnt get a slot at the near field would be comming in even higher, and imo there is already enough 25K alt monkeys orbiting the horde.
If slots were based on strat zones, it would be cool...until your country happens to be boxed into one zone, then what? If my memory is correct the small maps only have one strat zone per country.
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I have one major problem with the idea, and I don't think its been addressed so far.
(To be honest I didnt read all posts all the way thru to see for sure -- this thread's gotten a lot of action really fast. So, forgive if it has been covered.)
HiTech, this solution hits hardest against those causing the least gameplay impact -- the less skilled players. Intermediate players die A LOT more often than the vets, but we are also less effective when we fly. So, we would be more likely to be impacted by the delay.
Importantly, we also have a less developed network of relationships. Jumping to other countries means we have to start all over getting to know people. We are much more likely to stick out the discouraging times -- and become profitable long term players -- if we have friends on the team. If we have to jump to another country to take off, an indirect effect could be a greater chance of giving up the game.
Meanwhile, the players who do the most to make to it hard to fly outnumbered have relatively less penalty, because they get more air time per sortie, fewer sorties per hour, and because they get more kills per anything.
More vets in the air; and, longer waits for the frequently dead less skilled players. So, the gameplay impact for any given hour will be TO INCREASE the lethality of the outnumbered side's opponents. .In the short term, then, the effect would be to WORSEN the gameplay imbalance.
If this is the approach you want to take, i would strongly recommend that the effect be applied based on large timeframes -- like Country sorties per week or active players per month.
That way the pressure is applied consistantly, predictably, and --most importantly -- it would be apllied in a way that would encourage entire social units (squads) to switch together for a long haul.
However, i'd like it better if a different solution were found. My squad friendhips have at times been the only thing keeping me form giving up the struggle to get better, and I suspect I'm not alone.
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Originally posted by Arlo
P.S. "The race to reset" promotes countries ganging on the lesser side. If there was no "win", you'd see less of that.
Couldnt agree more.
But it doesnt change to Security in numbers syndrome. Some guys just like to Hoard.. Its a simple fact.
The simple fact that we have Ranking, Score, and the SYSTEM LANDED ###KILLS will always keep some players doing what ever it takes to aid their lack of skill and in some cases even some good players...more than we care to think. And i dont mean that in a bad way. If you are a player that is new or not very good...You are likely to seek the comfort of flying in situations that offord more Green than Red. But i think very FEW would want Scores droped..SYSTEM Messages removed and such.
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My idea:
instead of an individual time frame for each pilot, how about a spawn timer system similar to that found in BF1942/RTCW. Keep a constant timer running, however long it may be.
For Example:
the timer is set to 4 minutes once numbers get to that out-of-hand stage... If a guy on the OOC team gets killed 1 minute into the timer, he has to wait 3 minutes to up again. Likewise, if its your own good luck to get killed 30 seconds from the spawn time, you get to up in 30. That way SQUAD EVENTS CAN STILL BE PERFECTLY COORDINATED, and you provide an incentive for people to stay on the same team. Also make the timer hidden so people dont try to beat the system.
If someone starts a mission, then the mission would simply reflect how many timer cycles until the mission, instead of a set number of minutes.
i think it could work!
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"The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage"
I missed this before. Actually, limiting the Spit9/Nik/La7/P51 (and presumably the Ki-84 when we get it) might have a drastic effect. The lesser used planes only shine in situations where they have overwhelming numbers because there are still an equal or greater number of "allies" flying the above to mask any performance deficits the P47, etc. has when flying against enemy Big 5 planes.
A "horde" of P47s facing half their number in La7s would probably get roughed up very quickly indeed.
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Now without the info I am little leery of the solution not for the reason some might think.
There has been a definite hit in player numbers and activity do the AH2 switch over. If you use the current stats page to compare countries .. you can argue over many things but the levels of deaths and kills per country is roughly back where was back in Sept/Oct. 2002.
We have lost a lot of people. Or a lot of people are not flying as much. And that goes for more than the MA .. the events in the SEA are definitely also down on numbers (by about 22%-30% in Squad Ops over what they were).
As already brought up what you have to figure out here is how likely is a person to change countries, wait to fly for his country (for those who are dedicated to a country), or log. You have to come up with a time limit that will not encourage more people to log off than wait. I don't think you will encourage many people at all (not the dedicated squads) to switch countries and abandon their fellows or squads mates just to be able to fly with no time limit.
Therefore if you do put this in place you need to put something in that strikes the right balance. If you do 15 minutes you might be causing a lot of people to log. Once you start encouraging your customer base not to fly play you start making them look for others things to do.
5 Minutes might be better .. a penalty and enough a delay to help the defenders regroup and prepare for the next wave but not enough to cause people to log instead of flying.
I personally don't and haven't bought into the beliefe the massive amounts of people switch between countries on a regular basis.
I took a day to try to check country affiliation and squad information back 7/26/04 and this is how things stood then.
So did some research:
http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/master-list-of-squads.xls
There are 491 registered squads of which 341 are actively flying in Camp 54. Of these squads there are two types of squads .. dedicated who only fly for their country and primary who mainly fly for one country but also fly a bit for other countries. Here is the break down of the squads:
82 - Bishop Dedicated - 24.0%
8 - Bishop Primary - 2.3%
96 - Knight Dedicated - 28.2%
16 - Knights Primary - 4.7%
91 - Rook Dedicated - 26.7%
31 - Rook Primary - 9.1%
As you see there are 269 squads that fly just for one country and don't fly at all for any other country; That is 78.9%.
Only 55 squads have pilots who will fly more than one country during a camp and even then those squads tend to fly more than 50% of the time for just one country. So this idea would nudge these squads. But the effect on the others is going to come down to wait or log.
Now the next interesting thing is the possible pilot pool that a country can field from these squads. These are the pilot numbers of the squads that could fly (does not reflect the amount they fly or frequency).
970 - Bishop Dedicated - 25.0%
86 - Bishop Primary - 2.2%
1040 - Knight Dedicated - 26.8%
199 - Knights Primary - 5.1%
1195 - Rook Dedicated - 30.8%
390 - Rook Primary - 10.1%
3205 pilots only fly for one country out of 3880 .. or 82.6%. Meaning as much as people here post and discuss actually the majority of pilots of all countries fly just for their country. But do note, currently have no way of tracking pilots not in squads.
So once again I don't think any programming solution at all is going to cause a mass change and cause people to start switching countries just to fly with no delay since most are dedicated to flying with their squad and their buds, and some to a country. It will cause more of the primaries squads to switch and cause some dedicated squads to move into the category of primary. But I don't see a mass conversions.
So that leaves the option to wait or log. As I said its all going to come down to the amount of the wait. Too much and people log and you start training your customer base not to play your game and go else where. Coupled with lower perk point costs for certain planes and this could have interesting and unforseen consequences.
To short and their is no impact to blunt the edge of overwhelming numbers.
Very tough rope to walk.
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What about the old AW idea of only lowing a certain number of planes to up from a base? One that number of planes have upped from a specific base no more can up until a person lands or dies who spawned from that base.
Forcing others to instead up from adjacent bases that have not maxed out. Possibly result of spreading out the large numbers in both time and space.
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IMHO, this would be a bad Idea.
Example:squad night/or mission, designing a mission or squad op, probably would always leave someone on the tarmac, randomly. The squad/mission would NEVER know ( until airborne ) who was "left behind". Given this senerio WHAT if it was a base capture and all the goonies were "left behind" on a "timeout"? You would have some really PO'ed players. Now this leaves us with still the imbalance problem and where to attack it.
Lets see we have,
Planes. (either limiting a certain plane or fuel,ammo)
(insert whines here)
object hardness. ( raise or lower according to number strenght) You would need someway of letting the players know the Hardness settings are changed and what too)
Dar. ( stronger side losses dar? weaker side and it cannot "go down"?) wouldn't change the numbers but would help the underdog. could Dar range be changed for each country? As the numbers increase the Dar gets shorter legs?
Feild repair. ( time for repairs, quicker for underdog, longer for "stronger side", this could work as a slider % for each team according to number %)
Or go off the board and use HiTech's "time" or plane in the air limit. ( I think this is alittle drastic at this time )
Or use a combination of all! So each thing would have a much smaller effect, an effect but spread out between a number of "resistances not Just one.
( So, HiTech gets a whole lotta little whines, instead of a few really BIG ONES!)
what we need is a tension effect, more resistance to the team with higher numbers, but where do we apply the resistance?
NUTTZ
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With or without the idea implementation, I like the idea of having a second arena where the disgusted can go when the current situation in the MA seems too much. I dunno. Maybe one with 2 sides and historical planesets.
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
If the perk system was put in place (by this I mean the lowering of price of perk rides as a country gets out numbered) was mean to encourage people to switch countries, your right didn't work.
I don't think any programming solution is really going to achieve this.
I do think the perk system has made it possible for the out number country to fight the larger country to a stand still as the Knights have been doing with perked planes hunting goons, taking out barracks, and doing small targeted fighters sweeps aimed out destroying the cohesion of the attacking horde.
I think that winning perks for the a reset can be done away with. I think the goal of resetting a country is enough and just like in real WWII there was not combat in the air for just combat sake but to support the effort of combined arms and taking territory from the enemy. Even Battle of Britain stemmed from the Germans wanting to gain air superiority so that they could launch their invasion. So I think no matter what most of the player based will still strive to advance their front against the other country and beat them.
I also think that their are culturally difference between the countries just like between squads. And to some extent these differences attract and dissuade people from flying for a specific country along with other reasons or combined with other reasons.
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Perks motivate very few people, I suspect. Those with skills to really benefit from the advantaged planes have perks to burn; people like me figure that it's smarter to die in a less expensive plane. :lol I bet not many people change behavior based on perks.
How about that DAR idea? Helps the outnumbered side, and gives incentive to switch.
How about simply appealing to the "good of the order" for a few squads? Some of these guys who played airwarrior when it first opened probably know everybody anyway, and might be willing to move if HT requested that several squads violunteer to go over. Might also spread the "get organized" ethic to other countries; from what I've read, it seems only the rooks have organized Joint Squad ops. (COurse, if I'm wrong, I'm sure somebody will correct me.)
Although numbers imnbalance is no fun, doesnt seem right to penalize the group that routinely organizes itself.....and to be honest, that organization is partly why the honchos moved my squad to rook 5 mos ago.....
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Originally posted by hitech
To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
How about actually well thought out war plans to show brains is better then numbers. You don't need numbers to pound the snot out of a country exploded with population. We did it to the over populated C-Land in AW many times. There's more satisfaction in whupping huge numbers with smaller force, just better thinking. After a while the sides seemed to balance off more. Then when everyone saw how much ars B-Land was doing with smaller numbers it drew people to that side. They wanted to be a part of killer raids, not loser sniveling. Sometimes you just have to work for the change, force it to happen without COD help. THINK!!! It's turned from a game into a war, let the war evolve/progress. When they get tired of cryin they can start fighting there way out of it, like they should have already been doing.
Also instead of not giving points to idiots with wings, how about 6-10 minute wait periods as penalties for severe dweebleness? I'm serious, if someone has to wait 6-10 minutes for being a dork, maybe they'd think twice. If they only had one life they would fly totally different. Since the one life thing don't work penalize them with wait times. I personally, would not even entertain the thought of suicide bombings if I knew I had to wait 10 minutes.
Morons really chase people away, prolly more so then any bugs.
2 cents,..... will cost ya a buck ;-)
Anim
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Originally posted by Arlo
With or without the idea implementation, I like the idea of having a second arena where the disgusted can go when the current situation in the MA seems too much. I dunno. Maybe one with 2 sides and historical planesets.
You're starting to sound like laz2 with his furballer drumb beat, except your is CT instead ;)
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Originally posted by hitech
snip
Your thoughts?
HiTech
How about just having two sides i.e. Axis/Allies.. It would be easier to manage, no?
:D
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What's your solution to the rooks being 20% more than say the Bish but the bish and knit's are both attacking the rooks and together way out numbering them.
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I don't think this is a good idea.
I would favor a more aggressive perk modifier as the percentage of high numbers side to lowest numbers side goes up.
More perks awarded, and cheaper perk rides.
Also, allowing players to switch to the lowest numbered side without the normal 12 hr wait, so they can take advantage of the perks and cheap rides.
Keep players flying, that's what they are paying for.
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Two sides would be good.
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Originally posted by AKFokerFoder+
I don't think this is a good idea.
I would favor a more aggressive perk modifier as the percentage of high numbers side to lowest numbers side goes up.
Just curious, what would you think about perk modifying ENY values, so that perk earnings go down as number advantage rises.
Also, allowing players to switch to the lowest numbered side without the normal 12 hr wait, so they can take advantage of the perks and cheap rides.[/B]
Im not understanding where the 12hr wait keeps one from taking advantage of that. Most people fly a couple hours at a time, and can switch back when they log on the next day.
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If the bases were uncaptureable but damageable, and each country's bases sprinkled among the others, combined with more destroyable factories that would have a greater effect on each country's ability to wage war........just say the war is won when all of a countries factories are damaged or destroyed to a certain level.
This would eliminate the horde mentality for land grab and also promote more realistic air combat over the factories. Comments?
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All the proposed solutions to limit the ablility of the team with the most player's to wage war do not work unless they cause people to move to the smaller team.
If all you do is slow down the beast, then all you have accomplished is to leave the little guy with a few fields, no dar and a crap load of vultchers above, because the beast can't finish the kill.
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Originally posted by NUTTZ
IMHO, this would be a bad Idea.
Example:squad night/or mission, designing a mission or squad op, probably would always leave someone on the tarmac, randomly. The squad/mission would NEVER know ( until airborne ) who was "left behind".
Yeah, I got real sick of that crap in AW when the 'zone limit' was exceeded or whatever when trying to run squad missions.
I don't like this idea and my squad will probably switch from rooks back to knights soon anyway - but as someone said - we are lazy and disorganized.
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
What about my idea (inspired by nopoop) re. strat up/down times? The more I consider it, the more it makes sense. The horde kils my vh, and it's back in 5min, vs. we kill their vh and it's down for 45min. (insert proper up/down times. only exapmles).
The horde swoops in, kills all fh's, BUT they back up in 10 min. Not bad. BUT we kill their fh's, and they down for 45 min. I think this would balance the #'s w/o telling xyz country "you can't fly"
p.s. bad speeling kept so mabe HT can better understand the post
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Originally posted by Murdr
You're starting to sound like laz2 with his furballer drumb beat, except your is CT instead ;)
Oh Man, That just reminded me.... (with humor intended)
If you just moved all the feilds closer together it would fix everything! ;)
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Originally posted by hitech 6/24/2004
Just so everone knows,
Pyro and I have created a game with 4 countries.
Pyro and I have created a game with 2 countries
Pyro and I have created a game with 3 countries.
We think 3 works the best for unstrucksured game play.
HiTech
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Originally posted by Furious
All the proposed solutions to limit the ablility of the team with the most player's to wage war do not work unless they cause people to move to the smaller team.
Im with Furious on that one.
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I get few evenings to fly (expecially during summer). Often times I just look for the biggest dar bar and attempt to defend the onslaught.
If I was restricted and had to wait after each death it would suck and I would likely log instead of switching sides. The squad I fly with is one who never switches so that is not really the best option.
Other options:
1. Limit the bombload for the country with large numbers simulating the shortage of supplies for the amount of planes upping. A message saying 'no ordinance available at this time' would work.
This allows people to fly where they want, what they want - but changes HOW the war goes. Instead of 100 planes proking a field .. they would have very little chance to shut a base down in one wave, giving the counties with fewer numbers a better chance to defend.
2. Restrict planetype for the country with the most numbers.
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keep it simple.
restrict switching to the country with the most numbers first. See how the MA reacts.
It will nudge the numbers towards balance and my be enough in and of itself.
btw I am against the time restriction idea. you will have more players frustrated about that then are currently upset about numbers.
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Originally posted by Virage
keep it simple.
restrict switching to the country with the most numbers first. See how the MA reacts.
It will nudge the numbers towards balance and my be enough in and of itself.
btw I am against the time restriction idea. you will have more players frustrated about that then are currently upset about numbers.
Arrrrrrrrgh! I been saying that for a couple weeks lol (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&goto=lastpost&threadid=125863)
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(http://flightsims.info/ah.jpg)
This is the country dispersion as of a few minutes before posting this.
I just wanted to substantiate my earlier point that numbers alone do not determine the state of the war. The rooks have captured nothing and lost 4 fields in the last 30 minutes to both knights and bishops because of missions and squad actions against them, while offering no offense or cooperative missions - only defense.
Having such a system in effect would only enhance the herd effect since rooks would be limited and the others would not. If players choose not to consider the benefit derived from cooperative, organized action, numbers will not save them.
Maybe... :)
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Originally posted by Waffle BAS
still think it's a simple matter of greed and rewards...even if a pilot doesn't fly for perks...knowing that he can make about 20+ perk points a kill will draw a few.
Isnt that kinda dumb?
I dont fly for perks wait! wait! I can change country and make PERKIES!!
yeha!! wheres the line?
doh...
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Originally posted by hitech
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I respectfully disagree. If a customer primarily flies Squad Ops, which it sounds like many do based on the responses, we have limited their gameplay if they are in a "timeout" when the Squad rolls. I would not prefer to switch sides and miss the enjoyment and camraderie of my Squadmates, instead I would just fly every "other" mission with my Squad. I guess in a way that is my choice, but it's driven from the reason I play this game, to fly with my Squaddies. I don't think I'm alone.
It's a tough problem, and I appreciate the fact that HiTech is looking at it and asking our opinions. The worm eventually turns on these types of things, did in AW and have over time in AH.
Honestly, I think things were even worse back when Rooks were in the tank, because it was always a mad rush between the Bish and Knits to see who could reset the Rooks first. The only time we had a repreive was when Knits and Bish had to turn on each other to get the base lead. Now, even when Rooks have the numbers on Sundays, it feels like a more even fight because the Bish and Knits are smart enough to team up against the Rooks and make it an even fight.
Cya Up!
Dawg
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Was just thinking this time limit could cause an inverse reaction. 10 people are killed and they have to wait to up. One guy bored with the wait decides I will make a mission. He has to make the mission time to launch say 15 minutes. All who are waiting decide I will find a mission while I wait, Join up and wait till it launches.
Now not only is the other teams still outnumbered but now they are getting killed by an even more organized horde. This time limit would force organization. Lots more of the newer guys who die more frequent are now going in masse instead of one at a time ant trails. This could even further unbalance the arena.
RHIN0
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Here's another tack at it: It's not the side imbalance that is such a problem, it's the concentration of so many pilots on a single point, overwhelming any possible defense. Its the 'steam roller' offense enabled by a side's overwhelming population that is really the problem, no? Put another way, even if the Rooks outnumber the Knights or Bishops 2 to 1, it's an even fight if both opposing sides are fighting the Rooks and not themselves. So side imbalances aren't necessarily the problem - it's the tactics they enable that are undermining gameplay.
So maybe instead of putting time constraints on pilot's re-upping, another solution would be to restrict bases' abilities to spawn such huge waves of attackers. For example, each plane that departs a base would reduce that base's supply of fuel by a certain amount. So maybe a 50-plane raid originating from a field would take the field's fuel capacity down to 50% (which could be brought back up by delivering airfield supplies, or could be restored the same way field fuel damage is 'restored').
It's a realistic solution, since fields in RL aren't able to support infinite flights without receiving supplies. Also it might spread the action out around the maps, and its a little more player friendly than simply denying players the ability to spawn anywhere on the map unless they change sides.
I actually like the idea of underdogs and perk modifiers. If a side balancing mechanism is put in that works perfectly, they'll be no more opportunities to fly for the underdog and get cheaper perk planes.
this is a good discussion; its pleasing to see HT involve us like this.
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
htech why do you always have to make sense?!
You did the same thing the last time we talked on the phone about Ch200 and Ch1 for 20 minutes! lol
I kept saying one thing and you'd come back say no it wouldnt work and then make sense as to why it wouldnt work! And then honestly convinced me that Ch200 was a good idea! grrr why!? lol
Now you got me thinking that this new Idea is somewhat a good thing! lol I still have questions and some doubts but more of me says yes to it now than no. grrr why?!Why ya gotta be like that? lol
I dont know... Anything to fix the numbers thing or atleast try to fix it is a start. And I guess the wait wouldnt be that long to reup. AAAANNND if you didnt like waiting to reup go elsewhere.
Man, I need to take out with me when me and the little lady want to see a movie and she wants to see a chick flick and I want to see Action... Of course you are going to argue on my side tho! lol
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Murdr:
Just curious, what would you think about perk modifying ENY values, so that perk earnings go down as number advantage
Works for me, I like it :)
quote:
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Also, allowing players to switch to the lowest numbered side without the normal 12 hr wait, so they can take advantage of the perks and cheap rides.[/B]
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Im not understanding where the 12hr wait keeps one from taking advantage of that. Most people fly a couple hours at a time, and can switch back when they log on the next day.
Well here is the scenario. You log on Sunday afternoon, and switch to Rook, the12 hr timer starts. Later that evening you can't switch sides to get the perkies and planes by switching to Bish.
True it would effect only a few players, but every player who switched means a more balanced field.
Personaly I just wait until Bish lose their dar on Sundays, then I log. But that is only because I don't like being a blind target padding someones kill buffer.
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I guess this Idea for me would boil down to this....
Since I wont change countries, How long do I have wait between each flight?
If its a minute, No Big. If its 15mins, Ill go do something else.
At what point does it become imbalanced to the point that things need to attempt balancing??
If its when one country has a 5 pilot advantage its exessive. If its when one country has 100+ pilot advantage it might be livable. Seems to me that anytime countries are with 25-30% of each other it doesnt need to be balanced.
It is disappointing to me that HT has felt the need to step in at all. I hope no one took offense at my slight joke of "Rook Rule" but it does feel for me to be directed at the Rooks.
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I still think the first step is to get good statistics on actually attendance in the MA per country. A log program that records the numbers per country at 15 minute intervals over they day will allow for an actual snapshot of how things are going. Instead of relying on people talking about their perception.
I have tried to do this myself for the times I have fly .. nights around 9 - 11 pm EDT. Been really busy with freelance web/graphic work so its not as thorough as it should be but here is what I got since tracking (and yes, I know all sundays have the Rooks around 180-200 form 9-11):
Mon - 7/19/2004 9:07 pm EDT - B157 - K106 - R124 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss1.png
Mon - 7/19/2004 10:09 pm EDT - B183 - 128 - R139 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss3.png
Tues - 7/20/2004 9:04 pm EDT - B126 - K82 - R136 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss4.png
Tues - 7/20/2004 10:00 pm EDT - B141 - K107 - R163 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss5.png
Weds - 7/21/2004 10:00 pm EDT - B153 - K95 - R150 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss6.png
Weds - 7/22/2004 8:59 pm EDT - B125 - K111 - R122 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss7.png
Thurs - 7/22/2004 10:26 pm EDT - B132 - K126 - R122 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss8.png
Thurs - 7/29/2004 9:21 pm EDT - B124 - K102 - R145 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss15.png
Thurs - 7/29/2004 10:27 pm EDT - B112 - K123 - R167 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss16.png
Thurs - 7/29/2004 11:49 pm EDT - B85 - K108 - R127 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss17.png
Fri - 7/30/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B133 - K98 - R154 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss18.png
Sat - 7/31/2004 9:39 pm EDT - B137 - K118 - R160 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss19.png
Sun - 8/1/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B136 - K114 - R203 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss20.png
Sun - 8/1/2004 10:43 pm EDT - B122 - K124 - R208 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss21.png
Thurs - 8/5/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B142 - K152 - R150 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss22.png
Monday - 8/9/2004 9:43 pm EDT - B156 - K113 - R148 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss23.png
Monday - 8/9/2004 10:59 pm EDT - B121 - K133 - R146 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss24.png
Tuesday - 8/10/2004 9:35 pm EDT - B120 - K132 - R159 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss25.png
If you take a look at the screen shots also look at the bases held by each other country. In many cases the country with the least numbers has the least amount of bases but not always. Also if you look at this past sunday you will see that even though the Rooks almost outnumbered the Knights and Bishops combined that those two countries held the Rooks to a virtual stand still.
Couple trends is that that 2nd largest country (base wise) tends to attack the largest country base wise when the country with the lowest bases passes a certain threshold .. to try to prevent reset (not always the case but a trend).
Next interesting developing trend is that once a certain number of pilots are on .. massively outnumbering the other two countries they tend to both start slamming the larger country (don't think its coordinated) as they percieve it as a massive threat. Basically stale mating it until interest is lost by the hoarder (Rook) and people start logging off for sleep.
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I think that form a buisness standpoint it wouldnt be a good move.
Be it because they are forced to wait. or because they dont feel like being horded
Anytime you have playes logging off its not a good thing.
Though I agree something needs to be done.
I propose that we add a bit of realism and have base. or better yet Zone limits as to how many planes can be up from aparticular feild or zone at any given time.
After all Airfeilds could not and now cannot supply or maintain an unlimited amount of planes at any given time.
why should they here.
I like the zone limit better.
this wouldnt force anyone to wait around before then can fly again and would at least force the masses to spread out or take off from bases farther back
And speaking of a supply side perhaps have massive numbers start facing logistical problems just as they would have in real life.
say once X amount of aircraft up from a base reduce the amount of fuel or type of ord they could carry up to and including the dreaded 25% fuel Then as the number from a zone or base start reducing from attrition those supply numbers would go back up accordingly
I beleive a combination of these two would go a long way to creating a more balanced fight even if one side has massive numbers.
And nobody would have to wait,switch countries. or log off.
If face wiith zone or logistical problems they would have the choice from upping from a different zone and taking a longer flight (who knows it might even encourage more people to fly buffs)
Or in heading to a different target area altogether
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Drediock see my post above; I think you and I are on the same track...
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Originally posted by ghostdancer
(and yes, I know all sundays have the Rooks around 180-200 form 9-11):
LOL conservative numbers. But thats cool
Try 180-250
This past sunday I looked at one point they had 240
One night some months ago they almost reached 300
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Originally posted by Grimm
At what point does it become imbalanced to the point that things need to attempt balancing??
If its when one country has a 5 pilot advantage its exessive. If its when one country has 100+ pilot advantage it might be livable. Seems to me that anytime countries are with 25-30% of each other it doesnt need to be balanced.
Grimm. Consider the average joe that only has time to log on for an hour or 2 after work. Now consider that joe logs on every night for weeks to find frustration with his country being ganged. If joe isnt in a squad he might just go to the high number country to bypass the frustration (making matters worse). Or if he's in a squad or flies with friends, he is stuck with the situation for however long it lasts. How long does it take for the numbers to cycle now a year?
If something could be done to speed up that cycle so that it isnt a given that country x will be up by 30-150 pilots, I think it would be a worthy endevor.
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Originally posted by warhound
Two sides would be good.
No it wouldn't,.... trust me
Animl
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I have screen shots of this pass sunday.
At 9:36 EDT Rooks were at 203
At 10:43 EDT Rooks were at 208
Rooks numbers did not swell up into the 240s after 11 pm. So if they did have 240 then they peaked and fell within about 1 hour .. or you are mis-remembering.
But basically we really need a tool that allows us to poll and check numbers.
From the Rook side I rember 2 RJOs back in 2002 and 2003 that broke the 300 number after weeks of trying to turn out the troops.
In AH2 there has only been on RJO (officially planned get togther and working to turn out the troops .. other sundays is just normal nights where their is some impromptu organization) and I haven't seen the Rooks break 300 in AH2 yet (but I don't fly all hours of the day).
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Another Random Thought
If the numbers are like this....
Bishops 150
Knights 50
Rookis 155
Would the system then Penalise the Rooks, as the largest, Yet not affect the Bishops??
The Rooks would be the largest by over 100 pilots over the knights, but the Bishops are have nearly the same number advantage.
How bout this one...
The Smallest country now gets Fighter Drones??
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Originally posted by hitech
To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
i dunno, because this punishes the newbies......and thats a not nice way of getting new subscribers..... im all up for something making sides even, but im not sure its this....
hmmm
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Hitech, its a big wrong, its negative, to *Forbit* . To *Dont*.
The positive way is to make people *Want* to change country.
Give many perks, give free perked planes, to the weakest country. Give imortal radar and double the number of hits to take
out fhs, vhs. Thats the way.
Its not good to forbit something witch someone has pay for.
This is against the unwriten lows of the market ;)
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Originally posted by Scherf
Top of my head (haven't read other posts), I don't like the idea of time limits between flights. Would be more of a pain in the arse than flying against numbers - I'd likely log and start playing IL-2 offline, not what HTC wants I imagine.
Isnt that a contradiction? If you have to fight against the numbers...then you wouldnt be the country having to wait to fly.
Originally posted by Scherf
Again off the top of my head, I think updating perkage would be a better idea. Both in terms of the multiplier for side numbers, and in terms of the cost of a lot of the standard aircraft. Make flying a lala in a crowd a risky proposition, and I think you'd see less of it.
Just my $.02.
Now let's talk about this clear, shameless Axis Bias (TM).
Cheers,
Scherf
The Perk system hasnt and will not work to balance the sides.
overhaul it all you want. It wont work.
Originally posted by Hades55
Hitech, its a big wrong, its negative, to *Forbit* . To *Dont*.
The positive way is to make people *Want* to change country.
Give many perks, give free perked planes, to the weakest country. Give imortal radar and double the number of hits to take
out fhs, vhs. Thats the way.
Its not good to forbit something witch someone has pay for.
This is against the unwriten lows of the market ;)
Dude some of these ideas might work. But it would seem like a lot of work to make the DM against objects a fluid setting.
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Originally posted by Virage
keep it simple.
restrict switching to the country with the most numbers first. See how the MA reacts.
It will nudge the numbers towards balance and my be enough in and of itself.
This just makes sense. Limit ability to join the biggest country, and let time drain the numnbers down to acceptable levels. No one person is forced to do anything, nobody's choices are forced, and time solves the problems. When numbers are near equalized, normal switching is reactivated.
Controlling the spigot will set the water level, as there will always be a slow drain out the bottom....
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1 1/2 years ago when the 339th FG formed, the Rooks were the few and the downtroden. The 339th went with the underdogs the low numbers. So what happened? Now the rooks seem the most populated country. Why the switch? I believe it simply deals with the underdog mentality. Many others did what the 339th did. Suddenly there's a "Bubble of Rooks" if you will. I think this will end as it began. There is no reason to do more than wait for the tides to shift. I am confident that it will.
Hitech, thanks for the interest. That's why AH2 leads the pack.
Timeouts: I am totally opposed to this method of balance. Pilots, such as myself, only have a certain amount of time to play. I'm just not tolerant enough to sit through "timeouts".
If anything, I think it would be fun to add a 4th country. Let's do away with the Chess pieces!! We could call them: USA, England, Germany, and Russia. We could split these into two cooperative groups called the Axis and the Allies. Hell yeah, we could even simulate a World War, say.......World War II.
Regards,
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and 11pm EDT is 8pm Pacific time when many others of us get to attempt to play. I have given up flying at night (Pacific time) for the past 6 months..the only thing I will man is a field gun if there is one that hasn't been destroyed......I find the game most enjoyable around 8am EDT when the numbers are lower on these small maps and the sides are almost even.
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Originally posted by Zazen13
Not sure about that, I'd pay 50 bucks a month for AH and still think I was getting a bargain. Compared to what I spend on Cable TV with all the movie channels I never watch (because I'm flying) 15 bucks is chump change. I worked it out, I do the 6 month deal, I fly an average of 50 hours a month, that works out to 25 cents an hour. Compare that to the MAYBE 20 hours a month I spend watching the news, History Channel, Discovery Wings and the odd Dallas Stars game at $100/month, that's $5/hour. We won't even talk about the guys who fly 200-300+ hours a month. They're getting AH for 5 cents an hour. ;) Not much else you can get for a nickle these days, and we didn't even have to buy the game, it was a free download. :aok
Zazen
heheh could you imagine the bellie aching if it were $6 and hour like a decade+ ago?
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Originally posted by Murdr
Grimm. Consider the average joe that only has time to log on for an hour or 2 after work. Now consider that joe logs on every night for weeks to find frustration with his country being ganged. If joe isnt in a squad he might just go to the high number country to bypass the frustration (making matters worse). Or if he's in a squad or flies with friends, he is stuck with the situation for however long it lasts. How long does it take for the numbers to cycle now a year?
If something could be done to speed up that cycle so that it isnt a given that country x will be up by 30-150 pilots, I think it would be a worthy endevor.
I agree, Its supposed to be fun, not Frustrating. In fact you can be the ganger and not have much fun either.
Lets say you have perfectly balanced sides, each with 100 pilots. What is prevent the Bishops and Rooks to concentrate the majority of thier pilots against the Knights and still gang them? It could 200 vs 100 with a perfect balance on each side.
Normaly what ever side is on the bottom of the heap, it gets beat down by both of its advisaries. It seems to be the nature of the beast.
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I am sometimes limited as to when I can play, and I would be quite frustrated if I were forced to sit on the sidelines.
Better to handle this imbalance with perks or Nopoop's permanent Dar idea.
(BTW, I don't mind being outnumbered strategically, as I don't play the strategic game anyway, but just look for fights).
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OK my 2 cents....like we need another opinion :)
I don't like HT's idea, mostly because I'm paying to play a game, and now your proposing to "limit" my flying time... tho it won't effect me much as I fly with my squad as a bishop.
I don't think the number over balance is that big a problem. Sure on some Sundays it can get pretty hairy, but I think the problem has been amplified by the small maps. Once we get the big maps back the fronts will get spread back out and the "numbers to zone" ratio will drop again. With the big maps there still will be the "furball" areas, but you get the small fights, and the sneak area, and the GVs battles, alittle bit for everyone. So stop wasting time thinking about this stuff and get those big maps done! :D
However, I did like flakbait suggestion... way back on the first page of the post.... on slowing the larger attacking force by limiting the supplies to the front as the fronts move deeper into enemy territory. This would be a fun challange to add to game play :)
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Originally posted by hitech
JB73: If eveyone would post thoughts like that I would be one happy camper.
As to the spawn camper, the other side of that, it would make spawn camping less profitible. So think it would even out, but you are correct it could be a problem.
As to the % was think your example would be about the top of no limit imposed.
HiTech
Why not something like Murdr suggested in the thread he posted?
ack-ack
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I'm not so sure that adding a timer would really solve much and would bring on many other issues as above or still unforseen.
How about increasing the perk modifier as well as adding small perk values to the top 5 or even 10 used aircraft. This would be better than simply removing them from play and would encourage their use on a undermanned side while limiting use on the overmanned side. A good example of this is the f4uc...
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Sounds like a good idea, Have I heard this before < See Murdr's Post > :D
Crims
479th Raiders
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I must say that I am torn on like or dislike. I have noticed that most of the disliked, were rooks lol.
HT, no matter what you do, there will always be a group of people that will complain, and if you do nothing, there will always be a group who complain. No matter how you adjust anything, there will also always be a group who will take advantage and misuse the system to their benefit. Basicaly, you can't win no matter what you do :p
I will say that I appreciate the fact that you are reading the boards and trying to figure some things out to keep people happy and keep the game fun for all.
Good Luck in whatever decision you make. If it doesn't work, just undo it :D
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Agreed that nothing will please everybody -- but FBRaptor, try to disregard who's talking and just consider the points made. If they're good points, who cares if they're rooks or not? If not good points, who cares if they're bish?
Also, just because nothing will please everyone -- should we stop trying? Doesn't it make more sense to make the best steps possible to maximize effecitveness?
So what do you think of the logic behind the positions, raptor?
And, HT, I agree with the chorus -- your involvement here is a great example of what makes AH great.
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Originally posted by Simaril
Agreed that nothing will please everybody -- but FBRaptor, try to disregard who's talking and just consider the points made. If they're good points, who cares if they're rooks or not? If not good points, who cares if they're bish?
Also, just because nothing will please everyone -- should we stop trying? Doesn't it make more sense to make the best steps possible to maximize effecitveness?
So what do you think of the logic behind the positions, raptor?
And, HT, I agree with the chorus -- your involvement here is a great example of what makes AH great.
LOL, I am not sure why you are reading negativity into my comment to Hitech, that was not my intentions. My statement was a matter of fact, not critisizm. Maybe you are just looking for an argument? I actualy agree with both sides. That is why I did not give an opinion of my own.
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A different suggestion.
Instead of limiting takeoff-time or planes try this:
If your country is too big, you can't take off at the same airfield for a few extra minutes if you die. If you don't die, you're fine.
1) It rewards living instead of suicide runs.
2) If you need to fly right now, it pushes the fight to a different place.
3) If you prefer to wait, it gives the underdog a chance to re-group.
4) No one is denighed a plane or country. Just routed to a different fight.
There are always limited opportunities to kick the underdog fields, but many more to fight the other country.
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Well, do I like the idea?
I don't think I do, however not having tried it I can't say for sure.
I don't think that basically, a "time out," is the answer to the imbalance problem. But, given the fact that there seems to be quite a lot of dissention in the ranks over numbers, I think testing the waters is a good idea.
If I had anything constructive to suggest (other than what has already been posted and suggested) I would.
So..at that.....
Give'er a whirl Hitech! Can't hurt to try it.
btw, very impressed with this thread:aok
Cheers all,
RTR
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If you're talking about something along the lines of a 5 minute wait, I don't see a problem. If its toward a 10 or 15 minute wait, I don't like it.
5 minutes is a coke, beer or bathroom break. 10 -15 is a pita.
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ok reading through the thread i come up with the best ideas in my mind to this problem. I cant quote every person so ill just post them as if it was my idea ;)
1:
Timer at bases, 3minutes or so before spawn this way players up in a "mission like" fashon every time or they can move to a different base to find shortest spawn time...
Pro: People all up at the same time
Pro: wont get the constant line of cons ib to a base
Pro: might spread the front more....?
Con: People all up at the same time (yes i know......)
Con: how do they defend if the base is getting attacked?
Overall: Not sure it will really help the numbers thing, but it could make the game alittle more interesting.
2:
Limited/perked top fighters. For the side with the number advantage, slap a 2-10 perk cost on all top fighters (id say from 25ENY.)
Pro: Trys to push them to fighting with weaker planes, making there numbers not seem so bad
Pro: every time a lower numberd side shoots down a "new" perkie plane he gets more points, and the other guy loses them. I for one wouldnt like flying "perk" planes all the time.
Pro: will make it different to just fighting lalas/runstang51s/helicopters...err niks :aok
Con: As hitech already said, some underused planes ARE very good with numbers. for instance the p47s
Con: Perks dont seem to bother most people since the "vets" have 1000s of the things already
Overall: well it might get a select few to change, and will stop newbies flying perk planes, since they wont have perks.........
3:
Side with most numbers can have its fuel porked to 25% (maybe a tad overboard?)
Pro: Forces the side to defend its bases better, and since they have numbers thats fine right?
Pro: allows the small sides to at least have a chance out countering the numbers.
Pro: Might move the large side to attack the other side and not me
Con: Fuel porking sucks...but then thats the idea...make the large side suffer......
Con: Fights would get fairly boring.......
Overall: Not sure this will fix anything, 25% is NOTHING these days.
4:
"SERVER: Plane selection limited to aircraft with an ENY value of 50 or higher due to side disparity"
Pro: Makes there numbers useless if they are shooting 303s ;)
Con: tad OTT...maybe 30ENY.
Overall: Same as point #2 although alittle more extreme
5:
A number counter at bases... small bases = 20 planes max, med bases = 25 planes max, large bases = 30 planes max or maybe in relation to how many hangers up? Lets say 10 per hanger? Less or more? This could link to idea #1 where theres a time limit on the base. Once all 20 planes up, theres x minutes before the counter resets.
Pro: Stops massive hordes apearing out of small little airfields
Pro: makes the front spread out into more small furballs/battles for bases.
Pro requires forward thinking, what if a small bases is attacking a large base, its going to have odd numbers so it might need to up from other bases.
Con: small base attacking big base? Hard work!...hang on thats a pro........
Overall: again, not an idea to do with numbers, just an idea to spread those numbers out more evenly. Overall id like some attrition in this game, like WWIIOL.......although not as extreme
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Originally posted by ghostdancer
I have screen shots of this pass sunday.
At 9:36 EDT Rooks were at 203
At 10:43 EDT Rooks were at 208
Rooks numbers did not swell up into the 240s after 11 pm. So if they did have 240 then they peaked and fell within about 1 hour .. or you are mis-remembering.
Oh no Im not misremembering at all.
I dont remember exactly what time it was but When rooks were at 238
Knights at that time had 130 I forget exactlywhat the bish had.
I mentioned it on Channel 200. Probably have it on film as I had my cam runing most of that night.
A little while later I checked again and it was 240
not that it matters, once numbers reach 200 they are already past the point of being rediculous.
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Well, I usually don't comment on game stuff, but I read through this and thought I might mention something that hasn't been touched on too much. HT, it doesn't sound like you're talking about much of a time wait here if I read your spreadsheet correctly. Honestly, knowing the pilots that I do, a few seconds wait isn't much. Consider the following:
Pilot gets shot down/crashes/bails, gets kicked to tower:
10-15 seconds of complaining to teammates/country about why/how it happened
20-30 seconds of dealing with wife-ack/husband-ack/child-ack, etc
30-60 seconds of bathroom break/beer break/food break
10-20 seconds of asking teammates where they're at, what they need for support, checking on where the enemies are the thickest
10-15 seconds in hanger rearming plane/switching plane, etc
We're talking minute/minute and a half of down time anyway. Maybe I'm just slow, but the only time I instantly re-up is when I know someone's coming in to take out the gv hanger or I'm trying to de-camp a spawn point. On the one hand, I don't think most people would notice, or complain about a wait under 30 seconds, but at the same time, ***I don't think people would notice or complain about a wait under 30 seconds***. Yes, I meant to repeat myself. :) I honestly am not sure that it would make a difference unless it was a huge wait of, say, 5-15 minutes and then I think you might have a real problem with people leaving the game.
For what it's worth, I like the idea of having DAR or buildings coming back up faster when your side's numbers are low. But that's just my opinion. :)
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Didn't take time to read every reply, So forgive me If I repeat things already mentioned. Wouldn't changeing back to Being able to kill fuel, And making The HQ of the team that is out numbered Undestructable, Even the odds more. Then If team is down by 30% Make all perk planes free, untill numbers within playable range. I could see what ever team that has large number decrease fast if other side is getting free perk rides, Also New player in arena Having to wait to fly (these will be the ones usally waiting) Could cost all of us in the longrun not just HTC.
More players equal more fun for us and more money for improvements and for employees. PS Skuzzy deserves more money He has to put up with me, No one is paid enough for that.
Of soap box GL on trying to make 51% happy.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/79_1092200266_davidfg-1.jpg)
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Humm not sure I like that idea hitech.
I like Eaglers idea of limiting the perk rides. Or just elimate any ride that is a perk to the side that has what you consider too large of a piece of the population.
Also Shane had a good idea of just increasing the fuel modifier on that side with overwhelming numbers. Depending on how much of a fuel burn rate you gave them it might limit them to just a few types of AC. B-17’s. ;) It would certainly be a handy cap.
Personally I would rather see one of the above (remove perk rides or change the fuel mod) than to increase the time between flights. If I have several squadies on I want to fly with them, not have to wait in the tower. I would cause me to log which is not necessarily what you want. I think your better off looking at giving a side with overwhelming numbers a handy cap than forcing them to wait to fly. Most IMHO would rather fly the P-40 with a squadie then have to wait 10 minutes to fly their P-51 with a squadie. My two cents. :)
Idea 1 - How about the side with overwhelming numbers have their ack lethality decreased?
Or
Idea 2 - It only takes 3 troops to capture a field instead of 10?
Just tossing out ideas. :)
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Originally posted by Overlag
.
3:
Side with most numbers can have its fuel porked to 25% (maybe a tad overboard?)
I am assuming you are referring to my refrence o f reducing fuel to 25%
If not forgve me.
I said up to and including 25%
Im not saying do it at all feilds or all the time
what I mean is something like this and these numbers are only being thrown out as an example dor arguements sake and not what I would expect
5 planes 100% fuel plus droptank
10 planes-100% fuel
15 planes- 75% fuel
20 planes- 50% fuel
25+ planes 25% fuel
And the percentage of fuel available would go up or down based on how many planes from that feild or zone were in the air.
Say if there were 25 planes up and 5 got killed or landed the percentage of fuel available would then rise back up to 50% because there are now only 20 in the air as opposed to the 25.
Now if you wanna up with more fuel you can either wait for people to get shot down or land, or simply take off from another feild or zone that isnt being effected
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Terrible idea Hitech.
Even with the imbalance sometimes maps hang around way to long before being reset. 'Balancing' the numbers will only increase this problem that definately affects my mood when logging on and the time I'll actually stay online.
I've been on both sides of the numbers issue and I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I don't think you should even be wasting your valuable time trying to 'solve' it. 'Fixing' this issue will only create others for the whinner's to whine about.
ts
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Hmm - maybe when Tour of Duty comes out, this discussion could be a moot point.......Till then we just tough it out :)
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don't like it...and dont like the idea of being forced to fly on a team i don't want to go to......only thing i can think of is perking some of the planes that aren't usualy perked. when say numbers are say 20 or so % higher on one team
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i dont like it either, i think people will start to leave the game when they have to wait to fly a game they pay for or else switch to a country they dont wana fly for.
just mho.
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Getting ganged doesn't bug me enough to make me log. Not being able to fly because my side happens to *be* the gang would bug me enoug to make me log. I wouldn't change sides, I'd log, and find something else to spend time & money on.
Perks, shrug. I like having them, and I think the system is underdeveloped - it should cost something, something related to ENY value, to fly an ueberplane, whether currently perked or not. Might be another can 'o worms. Just my $.02 worth.
Cheers,
Scherf
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Originally posted by hitech
To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
when we was with 308 squadron we swich to rooks due inbalanance. We was together with rooks building their stranght.
When somone start crying about unbalanced arena 6 months ago ,we swich for knights to help them.
Flying knights was horrible beucose noone even try to fly organized and noone care about taking bases. We had friends in rookskand so we swich back very piss off on knights.
We fly rooks beucose our buddies fly here.
I dont like suffer holding in tower beucose other country pilots perform bad.
I dont like suffer beucose HTC will reward poorest side.
I dont like tu see bunch of poor skilled pilots flying 262 beucose is cheap.
I wil never again ask my squadies to swich sides beucose of arena unbalance.
Btw, Idea about restrict is not new and was plugin to russian free host 3 years ago.
Its prewents people from being voulched, nothing more.
If you die in first 1-2 minutes of flight, you can reup after 30 s from same base. But you can up from any other base right after you die.
oh one more , if somone start limiting my time in air or hold me tower beucose of unbalance , i will log off, possibly forever
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Though nothing to do with #'s balance, this is somthing I was thinkin bout, and probably has been discussed before.
What about increasing down times/resupp time for bases out side your homeland(zone) ?
One side is rolling taking bases and has extended out way beyond thier "Default" Homeland, and in essence extended beyond thier supply lines....so downtimes for Strats like troops,ammo and fuel are increased alot and town stays down alot longer.
This may slow the "Race for the Reset" style of gameplay a bit.
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Originally posted by Simaril
This just makes sense. Limit ability to join the biggest country, and let time drain the numnbers down to acceptable levels. No one person is forced to do anything, nobody's choices are forced, and time solves the problems. When numbers are near equalized, normal switching is reactivated.
Controlling the spigot will set the water level, as there will always be a slow drain out the bottom....
That is a very good suggestion! New people to the game do not care for which team they play. As opposed to long-term dedicated players, the majority of which have a very high country fidelity. The short-staffed teams get to bolster their population, but in a way earn it because they are, in effect, training new recruits to the game. Hopefully, in the process integrating them into their squadrons and making them into high country fidelity pilots for that team, permanently. This kind of mentoring also has the potential to improve the 'sense' of community within countries overall.
Zazen
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I think this option is better than no option.
May take some tweaking when actually implemented.
:)
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War is hell.
If one country with 100 players and 2 bases is getting gangbanged by the other 2 countrys with 75 players each, who needs the most help ?
Why not try the perk multiplyer on total bases owned for 1 tour before doing anything drastic as limiting a players ability to up when he wants.
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I agree with "Kweassa" as usual!
I like making the team with numbers actually fly different planes then the usual La7, spit, or Niki, or atleast make them pay a price.
Its really a win, win IMHO. More inferior planes get used or atleast the perk system will have some real value.
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I think you are asking for trouble limiting time flown,this I feel will cause as many problems as it solves.
Much better to limit the side with most numbers to planes of lower value.Just limit top end air frames.
I could certainly live with this idea.:)
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How about disabling frontline bases for the country with the largest numbers? They'd have to fly in from bases further back and therefore inducing a 'time to action' type of effect. This allow the other countries to counter attack then.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Oh no Im not misremembering at all.
I dont remember exactly what time it was but When rooks were at 238
Knights at that time had 130 I forget exactlywhat the bish had.
I mentioned it on Channel 200. Probably have it on film as I had my cam runing most of that night.
A little while later I checked again and it was 240
not that it matters, once numbers reach 200 they are already past the point of being rediculous.
Well without a log parser function (like the one that has been up on HTC website for countries but says coming soon) can't exactly tell. For this past sunday I took a shot at the peak times so if the numbers went there it spiked and played out fast somewhere between 9:36 and 10:43 or it happened between 9 and 9:36 (most Rooks start to log on around 9 and leave around 11 or 12).
Sun - 8/1/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B136 - K114 - R203 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss20.png
Sun - 8/1/2004 10:43 pm EDT - B122 - K124 - R208 : http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss21.png
However, as for being ridiculous .. I have to say that even with the numbers quoted from these screen shots take a look at the bases. In 1 hour of fighting with 200+ players the Rooks were only able to get 1 Knight base ..
9:36 25 Bishop Bases, 24 Knight Bases, 20 Rook bases
10:43 25 Bishop Bases, 23 Knight Bases, 21 Rook bases
It looks to me like those Bishops and Knights who log onto sundays instead of avoiding have come up with some very effective strategies to hold the Rooks back. Now, yes they have no hope of actually resetting the Rooks or siezing bases back during this 3 hour to 4 hour window on sundays but the ones on have adopted practices / tactics of hunkering down on the defense and not giving an inch without a fight. Was effective this sunday. And has for the last 3 sundays.
So they have adapted and gone from being clubbed like baby seals to coming up with ways to withstand the Sunday numbers by concentrating on defense instead of avoiding the night like some squads have posted they are doing.
Imagine what it would be like if instead of avoiding sunday if more Bishops and Knight squads actually rallied and turned out on sunday to stuff it in the Rooks face.
Its very possible Knights came up in force last night:
Tues - 8/11/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B134 - K166 - R149 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss27.png
If the Knights could get 160 on Tuesday and if they then could get 160 on Sunday might be very interesting.
Being stopped cold when the Rooks have strong numbers is also going to have an affect on the "Fair Weather" rooks .. the ones that came over because of the numbers who basically are going to get frustrated by the fact that an unorganized mass can't or isn't crushing significantly smaller forces. Its much easier to organize 130-160 than it is 200 .. so the 200 size force is clumsy and does stupid things. While the smaller force has become really, really motivated.
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Well, I don't know if it will work, but I think it's the best proposed solution thus far.
I don't think modification of perk costs will work. Here's why. Gross number imbalances will still happen and then you'll have every single outnumbered countryman flying a 262. I would rather play quake (and I don't even own a copy - heh, might have to buy one.)
Personally, I have no problems switching countries if the number imbalance favors us. I'm not sure what my trigger would be, but somewhere around a minute or two would have me switching countries.
I think it's worth a shot. If nothing else, it might give each of us the opportunity to meet new friends.
Heck, if it doesn't work, we can always request a change.
curly
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I guess I dont see why we're developing these complex solutions to a simple problem. Hitech's suggestion is fairly intrusive, on a sortie by sortie basis -- and it hits the newbies, least likely to impact game play, the hardest.
Point 1: Problem is numbers imbalance impacting gameplay.
Point 2: Interventions have secondary impacts that often outweigh their primary purpose. So, be direct and keep it simple to minimize this.
Point 3: If problem is numbers, what could be more direct, with fewer unanticipated complications, than limiting numbers on the high team?
K.I.S.S. principle in action -- "Unable to switch to Rooks due to numbers imbalance."
Everybody sees the numbers, not even newbies can whine, and current players can take off and fly -- which is why they're paying $15.
In 3-4 weeks, problem solved and we go back to other BBS topics. Why do anything more complictaed than that?
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Maybe HiTech is pulling an 'Alan Greenspan' and is encouraging us to fix the problem ourselves before he uses the heavy handed approach. Can we fix this ourselves? Talk to your squads and help the number situtation...
Either way, I'm definitely not willing to pay for time I can't use, its akin to watching cable TV 50 minutes instead of the whole hour show.
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The idea of a sortie timer, or having to wait will put field defense at a disadvantage.
Who will roll with enemy fighters coming in high if there is a chance you can't respawn right away?
I said 2 years ago that #'s should be tied to field acks. Makeing it harder for the country with all the #'s to defend itself. Eventually causing them to break up the horde simply to maintain what they have.
Or lose fields at a rate faster than they can gain them.
If the high counry lost an ack at each field or city for every 25 people more than the other countrys. It wouldn't take long before people would be vulching the horde on takeoff.
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Originally posted by Replicant
How about disabling frontline bases for the country with the largest numbers? They'd have to fly in from bases further back and therefore inducing a 'time to action' type of effect. This allow the other countries to counter attack then.
that would meen rooks can get to there magic 40k ;)
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i got it!!!!
take the oxygen masks out of the planes so the side with the highest numbers cant fly over 10-13k LOL :D
(ok ok it was kinda a joke......)
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This thread got pretty long, pretty fast, so I didn't read every post, therefore excuse me if this idea has been mentioned;
How about we attack the numbers imbalance from a more strategic stand point by limiting fuel, ammo, ords, & troops?
Seems reasonable that a countries resources would be stretched to the breaking point if it had over a predetermined number of players logged on.
By limiting fuel and ammo loadouts, flights are shortened, fields far behind frontlines are unreachable, and fewer fields can be taken by limited troop availability.
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Originally posted by Dawggus
I respectfully disagree. If a customer primarily flies Squad Ops, which it sounds like many do based on the responses, we have limited their gameplay if they are in a "timeout" when the Squad rolls. I would not prefer to switch sides and miss the enjoyment and camraderie of my Squadmates, instead I would just fly every "other" mission with my Squad. I guess in a way that is my choice, but it's driven from the reason I play this game, to fly with my Squaddies. I don't think I'm alone.
So your whole squad switches to the lowest numbered country and misshun to your hearts content, what's the problem?
PS... I like the dar ideas. Make lowest number country indestructable, middle country normal with less down time and high number country only have bar dar. ;)
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It initially sounds like it sucks..... I hear some people already hand wringing about having to move squads.....
Nonsense.
I like the idea of having to wait..... Might end the suicide runs that make this game so damn unrealistic. (Dive in at 500 mph, pork troops or ord, and auger). I'd like to see them have to wait 10 minutes to fly again :)
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I feel different.
This is what I feel:
1. Quadruple the cost of perk planes for countries who have 20% more people like you said.
2. Perk the planes with a ENY between 5-10. That would be perking most of the planes people fly so they probably change countries to get to fly the plane.
Canaris
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There are probably a million ways to accomplish this....
Real life? If you got shot down, it took a while to get back up. (Forget analyzing if you died what happened to your next flight).......
There should be a delay for all DEATHS and captures. Starting with the imbalance to implement this isn't a bad idea.
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(most Rooks start to log on around 9 and leave around 11 or 12).
However, as for being ridiculous .. I have to say that even with the numbers quoted from these screen shots take a look at the bases. In 1 hour of fighting with 200+ players the Rooks were only able to get 1 Knight base ..
9:36 25 Bishop Bases, 24 Knight Bases, 20 Rook bases
10:43 25 Bishop Bases, 23 Knight Bases, 21 Rook bases
It looks to me like those Bishops and Knights who log onto sundays instead of avoiding have come up with some very effective strategies to hold the Rooks back. Now, yes they have no hope of actually resetting the Rooks or siezing bases back during this 3 hour to 4 hour window on sundays but the ones on have adopted practices / tactics of hunkering down on the defense and not giving an inch without a fight. Was effective this sunday. And has for the last 3 sundays.
So they have adapted and gone from being clubbed like baby seals to coming up with ways to withstand the Sunday numbers by concentrating on defense instead of avoiding the night like some squads have posted they are doing.
Imagine what it would be like if instead of avoiding sunday if more Bishops and Knight squads actually rallied and turned out on sunday to stuff it in the Rooks face.
. [/B]
Cant say for the bish as I dont fly for them. But for the knights. Those effective stratagies was 3-5 of us running around all night long doing nothing but porking barracks. and basically thats all I did. All night long. Untill all the front linebarracks were down
Least thats what I was doing. Fortunately for me anyway it didnt seem like many rooks were interested in stopping me as on several occasions I flew right past entire formations on my way to target and only once did someone somone try to stop me and only one other occasion did someone break off to come after me. and even then he either changed his mind or it was decided I wasnt a threat to their flight and he rejoined his formation. that enabled me to kill the last of the front line barracks
Normally this is not the case. Normally Im lucky if I can make it to 1 or 2 feilds to kill barracks without getting ganged en route let alone to the 3-4 I did manage to get in at. and even then half the time those barracks are back up by the time I can get back there.
Now I dont know if they tried but it seemed the barracks stayed down an awful long time for being rook horde night. Typically I have witnessed with my own eyes rooks think nothing of sending what looks to be to me entire squads who's sole job it is to resupply bases and get troops back up I didnt see that this past sunday
Also it would seem that rooks have some very dedicated players who think nothing of flying goons from 3-4 bases back to bring troops in.
Now I dont know if they tried or not but I didnt see any of that which is not the norm. I say that because I specifically look for such activity.
I owe much of the lack of rook success to poor planning and execution dispite the great missions they put up.
And they were great missions. Problem is, they seemed to lack cohesion. And were overloaded with bombers. Or so it seemed to my eyes.
Made for a great view and probably some pretty cool films but didnt accomplish a whole lot
Also I have to hand it to the knights that night also as we seemed to put up a tenacius defence despite the odds.
But then again the lack troop availability and lack of imagination used in the planning stage went a long way to allow this defence.
Particularly since on several occasions the rooks were on the brink of overall success but Im guessing they lacked troops to complete the task
Im sure the rooks will eventually figure it all out and soon enough will be rolling along like roving mongols of old distroying everything in their path and bringing in 5-6 goons at a time as they normally do.
Overall I'd say though the rooks did more to stop themselcves more then the knights did to stop them.
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Originally posted by Widewing
I think that you are on the right track, but that your solution is too complicated. Let's keep Hitech's time penalty but add some options.
I would rather see it this way when lopsided numbers reach a specific trigger level:
You take off in a fighter. You eventually lose the fighter. You can wait 15 minutes to take another fighter, or you could launch immediately in another class, such as a bomber or vehicle. Whatever the result of that sortie, no matter how short (in other words you couldn't just take off and land to reset fighter access), you can't get in another fighter for 15 minutes from the time you lost the first one. Loss of bombers or GVs bears no time penalty.
What this means is that after a horde hits a base, those guys who get shot down will either be coming back in a bomber or a vehicle. Maybe they won't be coming back at all because bombers and GVs take a while to go anywhere. But, at least they can still play. I think most guys will be back up in the bombers and GVs instantly, and that will greatly reduce the offensive power resulting from a numbers imbalance.
I think this would work and no one would be denied their opportunity to play. Only their options are curtailed. I would also bump up the player threshold to 25% as I've seen 20% shifts over the course of 30 minutes.
My regards,
Widewing
<> Widewing, good idea but I think that after 15 minutes, the country with the numbers may have 0 fighters in the air. Again this is forcing people to fly a bomber or a gv. Nothing wrong with forcing them, but if HT is going to do that, he may as well force them in to a country of his choice and get it over with.
People react better to rewards than to penalties. Lets find a way to reward even numbers using perks, plane sets, stripers, amount of time stuff stays down, free beer, etc.
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instead of making the choice switch countries, wait between flights, fly with a plane you dont want, or log, would it be better to have a second MA to go to?
Not the CT but a second MA.
The only difference between the MA's is the second MA has a 10 player limiter. No country has more than a 10 player advantage. If you enter the MA and rooks have 10 players more than bish or knights you have to choose one of those countries. 10 player limiter would allow squads or friends to be on the same side.
People who dont like the situation in the first MA can go the the second.
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Originally posted by Karnak
I still hold that the perk icons are the single biggest flaw with the perk system. Those icons prevent the perk planes from being seen as a reward. Without them being a reward, perk points don't matter so no modification of the perk earning or pricing system will have any real effect.
I agree with that. Hundreds of players have thousands of perks in the bank and hardly ever use them. Who wants to fly through the arena ALL the time with a giant "shoot me first" icon over their head. I'd fly the Spit14 a lot if it wasn;t for the icon, same for the temp. But then again, the La7 guys still fly with the "shoot me first" icon over their heads, so maybe I am wrong :D
I don't know of a solution, particularly on the Tempest. The 152 and spit14 could be genericized easily enough though, just like the Chog. But I agree that is the reason so many who can spend a couple of whole tours flying nothing but perk rides don't.
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Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
As I have been reading the responses this morning somthing struck me. Most of the responses not wanting the time limit all had one thing in common.
Each person did not wish to give up their country to balance the numbers. And because they were not willing to change sides they didn't want the time limit. Well isn't this the basic problem we have right now? That people are not willing to change sides, they want some one else to have to change sides. Or they want to give somthing else to the underdog to apease them, but they are not willing to give up anything to solve the issue.
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.
I belive that most players would like to see the sides more evenly balanced. And most of the alterntive sugestions do not provide much motivation for people to change sides. They also would be extreamly difficult to predict what the outcome would be.
As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 120 0.00
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 140 1.32
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 140 0.00
Rooks 200 5.92
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 130 0.00
Rooks 200 6.66
HiTech
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Originally posted by hitech
Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
I'm not sure what method you used to derive these numbers, but from a statistical standpoint there is only a 5.5% deviation between any one country and Rooks (Bishops). I think GD's data proves much greater than 5.5% of the population switches countries regularly and/or rotates their entire squadron. Compound that with the fact that all subscribers play a very unequal amount of time and those figures lose even more meaning. One Bishop who logs 200 hours a camp is worth 4 Rooks like myself who only fly 50 hours a camp.
Zazen
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Originally posted by hitech
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.
Just wanted to disagree on the one point. If JoeRook and I want to fly together, and I cant switch to his country, he can always switch to mine. Hence we arent really limited. If just wanted to fly the high# country, and I couldnt, yes it is a limit on where I can fly, but I can still fly as often and quickly regardless of what country Im in.
My only concern with the time limit is how it will affect gameplay aginst those who are subject to it. Its kind of frustrating running into players who simply will avoid any engagement unless they have a clear advantage in situation or numbers, and I suspect a time limit would breed more of that.
However that may be a short sighted concern if in fact this does what you want it to do. If this annoys people enough to not let the numbers too far out of hand as a general rule, then reaching the threshold for time limits kicking in wouldnt be an issue.
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Originally posted by Murdr
My only concern with the time limit is how it will affect gameplay aginst those who are subject to it. Its kind of frustrating running into players who simply will avoid any engagement unless they have a clear advantage in situation or numbers, and I suspect a time limit would breed more of that.
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You bet it would. You think people fly timid now, you ain't seen nothing yet! If the mere fact they get a deaths in their fighter sheet is enough to make people fly timid/cautious try adding this timer. Just speaking for myself, I would make DAMN sure I NEVER got shot down, hell would freeze over before I got shot down and sat in the hanger for ten minutes waiting to re-up.
Zazen
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HTC to solve the numbers problem i would at least on your end if not already done so force the initial country new pilots fly for to be the one with the lowest numbers..
That way new players go to the least populated country...
Second make more perk planes.. G10 Mustang D, Dora, LA7 (not including spit or niki becuase both are slow and not unbalancing when used in mass.. some may disagree so take a vote its a election year which aircraft should be perked.) should have 5+ perks per aircraft each.. perks should have more of a currency value to it.. with incentive to land your kills.. now the perks get you a plane which is superior to the others but not that superior when including perk tags and other powerhouses like the la7 running around for free..) If all were perked then gain bang tags would be on Big 4 also .... or remove tags, your choice to give more value to perks.. As of current you have little value for perks with the big 4-5 running around for free.. this system is sound you just need to implement it full bore not the current limited approach..
(considering i got 7 perks for 2 kills last night in a zeke 5 perks per sortie is paltry..)
Make the perk modifier more extreme exp: when its 100 people over the opposing team they should get 1/4 or less of there normal points.. if your the team outnumbered you should get 1.5x or more.. (hence for the same 2 kills I got 7 perks (note we had most numbers when i got the 7) should be more like 1 or 1.5 perks for 2 kills)
These factors should also be applied to points for scoring purposes.. If a top score pilot wants to hide behind lemming hordes then make that pilot to suffer the lesser point value (1/5 or 1/6 of your fighter rank would be a steep penalty for lemming operations command.)
Install strategic fighter factories similiar to Air Warrior.. g10's la7s P51's (the most dominating aircraft in the game should have these factories in place...)
This will give strat value to blowing up these targets.. (hell i may become a dedicated bomber pilot if i can shaft la7crutch uses for a hour a day......)
The newer FPS's (planetside for example)
Have population locks to help limit the zerg mentality (front runners jackals) Note My suggestion to aces would be sectors or war fronts that have limits to the population for one side.. To implement this as a dynamic war front will be much harder than the programing that went into planetside becuase each warffront they got is a seperate island/server note the zerg (masses) still happen but at least the opposing teams have the chance to get a equal number of defenders in highly contested areas..
to make it easier to program; you could use base caps of aircraft per time say only so many aicraft can up from a field at a time.. (i know some are crying foul but in ww2 everybody didn't up from on base and conga to the target they upped from many bases had a rally point and then proceeded to the target..)
maybe 20-30 aircraft per ten minutes per base.. as a aircraft comes into land a new bird is available to be flown.. (using a new command to end flight would save your que on your bird so it doesn't get ganked from under you.. or allow the same aircraft to be available to you no matter what, but must be same aircraft type.., you come in p40b and the base is expended then you leave in a p40b)
This base limitation would also make base caputure more fluid.. No more i shot this guy down 15 times only to have him slip thru the net and bag c47 in a suicide attack to prevent base capture.. thats silly but as of current thats what we got.... just keep pressing fly and hopefully (thru act of god or praise to the la7 diety) get thru the cap for 15 secs to bag the capture attempt.. the base/war front limitation would serve as a rudimentry attrition model..
Without attrition you have no warfare.. Without attrition you have gamey behavior..
FPS also solve this by limiting the time before you can respawn . Die once no penalty.. Die twice more time before you repsawn, die more then more time. you get the picture.. you want to lemming then you play less. And i tell you it works....
Get rid of country wide radar... have multiple radar stations or command and control centers per sector.. Enable these to be destroyed with negative effects for such, but never a country wide blackout.. unless the opposing forces blow you to hell then tough luck.. you deserve to be blinded..
maybe make HQ raid increase the time that local radars can be repaired but country wide blackouts are bad.. (me personally i dont care but you should see the green text when that happens no one likes it whatsoever..)
Start listing statistics on sorties per country.. More stats are good... Use the stats to balance the game accordingly..
well thats just 30 secs of thought so take it for whats its worth..
Go get yourself a planetside account.. you may not play FPS Hitech but some of their solutions for zerging are very well thought out while others are not..
take the good and drop the bad..
2 cents..
DoctorYo
PS: Considering leaving rookland because the skill factor is in a downward sprial... Wasn't really evident till this camp.. I see alot of friendlys chasing the same bird not engaging other aircraft; Im saving people only to be left high and dry.. as they auger 2 secs later or some other crud reasons why they arn't engaging and im not impressed.. Rooks your goal is to engage not bait other pilots to serve as your fodder.. I suggest the old Rook Army should exodus and kick the crap out of the new Rook army the queen's berets. I can tolerate Knits (my Initial Country JG27) but the bish tards are not considered except for mercenary ops..
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Nice discussion. I would like to add a few points for people to weigh.
In reading this thread, I see people asking for a perk adjustment as a counter proposal. I get the feeling that people don't realize that there is already a perk adjustment in the current system. Perk prices and perk point awards are modified by relative country numbers. This is not enough and we don't feel that further increases it will be the answer and will only cause perk point inflation.
Respawn timers are successfully used in many online FPS games. I have a hard time believing that FPS players have a longer attention span than flight simmers and that they can flourish with a respawn delay and we can't.
To those who object to this, I'd like you to consider whether your objection is to the system or the degree. If you say that this would cause you not to play, would that be the case if delay were 10 seconds? If not, then you object to the degree the system may used and not really to the system itself.
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HT. You will need to find a way to be sure that those numbers represent what is actually happening on the ground. A simple numbers count wont do it. You will have to establish where the fight is.
Still think its better to establish a sorti rate that a field can maintain then lessen it as hangers are damaged and modify it by the ratio you establish for numbers. So large fields will almost always have a decent sorti rate. But small fields will have a resonable but fragile sorti rate. Make the sorti rate for Jabos slower then the sorti rate for Interceptors. Make the sorti rate for Heavy bombers slower then the sorti rate for medium bombers.
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Of all the suggestions in this thread I like DREDIOCK's "zerg" killing suggestion the best.
Spread the fighting out and deny the overpopulated side the ability to massively out number the defender's in a given sector. The underpopulated side, or side with too few sectors, would need an exemption from this. Possibly GVs could be exempt from the limitation, allowing substantial GV pushes to be made at focused points.
This would allow the following:
- Maps still able to be reset with some regularity
- Defenders able to have good fights in chosen sectors
- Attackers able to overwelm defenders by attacking the whole front rather than "zerging" one sector
- Increased chances for balanced forces in a given sector
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get rid of the small maps thats the problem on the big maps it dont mater if we are out numberd yes im a KNIGHT
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Originally posted by hitech
As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 120 0.00
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 140 1.32
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 140 0.00
Rooks 200 5.92
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 130 0.00
Rooks 200 6.66
HiTech
As mentioned by someone else, what is your contingency in a situation like this:
Rooks: 200
Knights:175
Bishops:100
Knight's have a greater than 20% advantage on Bishops and a less than 20% deficit to Rooks. Would only Rooks receive a sortie timer penalty? That would be incredibly unfair. You need to establish whether the determination for numerical advantage is to be contrued as in relationship to the team in the bucket, the mean average or the largest team. Therefore, you would have to have some sort of scaling that takes the numerical relationship between all 3 teams into account.
Zazen
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Abolish the countries.
Each new map 3 random team names are chosen. Prior to arena entry provide a roster that includes a buddylist and locater. If one team exceeds the numbers of any other team by X%, close enrollment for that team. If your squad is on the team with largest numbers and you can't get in, then the squad just moves to lowest numbered team for you or tells you, "too bad, we never liked you anyway".
...and always allow switching to team with lowest numbers without a time limit.
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I find most notable and encouraging that both hitech and pyro both acknowledge that there is a problem. This by itself is the good news, that they are considering doing something about it, even more so.
But to the point and question asked: I say Hitech's proposal is worth a try.
P.S. (since everone else has toseed in their off topic 2 cents, here's mine: I wonder what effect just extending a perk muliplier like effect to scoring would have too.)
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Originally posted by Zazen13
As mentioned by someone else, what is your contingency in a situation like this:
Rooks: 200
Knights:175
Bishops:100
Knight's have a greater than 20% advantage on Bishops and a less than 20% deficit to Rooks. Would only Rooks receive a sortie timer penalty? That would be incredibly unfair. You need to establish whether the determination for numerical advantage is to be contrued as in relationship to the team in the bucket, the mean average or the largest team. Therefore, you would have to have some sort of scaling that takes the numerical relationship between all 3 teams into account.
Zazen
I agree Zazen, This is a very likely situation.
Add to it, that the bishops and knights may not have much fighting between them It could easily be
Bishops/Knights 250 vs Rooks 200
The Rooks would be out numbered and penalised at the same time.
HT is right about one thing, I dont want to change countries. Its not just my squad that I wish to fly with. I have many good friends that fly in other squads. Some squads have bonds with other squads that go back to well before AH. I guess if I have to sit on my hands for 5 mins between flights its will give us time to talk politics on Ch2 ;)
It looks like the die is cast, but I still would prefer somthing to help the low country rather than bash the strongest country.
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Originally posted by Zazen13
As mentioned by someone else, what is your contingency in a situation like this:
Rooks: 200
Knights:175
Bishops:100
I think he addressed that in his spreadsheet example (http://www.hitechcreations.com/hitech/wait_time.xls).
Pluggin those #s into the spreadsheet rooks have 5 min wait, knights are just under the threshold. Add 5 pilots to knights, and its 30sec wait for knights, and 4-1/2min for rooks
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Maybe it should cost more to fly the country with the most numbers.
hehehehehehe
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Ok changed it to be based of the %over the least country.
Formula would be
WaitTime = (YourCountry% - (SmallestCountry% + NoFactor%) ) * MinScale
HiTech
New Sheet Least Per (http://www.hitechcreations.com/hitech/wait_time2.xls)
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Originally posted by hitech
Ok changed it to be based of the %over the least country.
Formula would be
WaitTime = (YourCountry% - (SmallestCountry% + NoFactor%) ) * MinScale
HiTech
Ahhh , that's much better! I'm satisfied with that formula, it addressed my major concern posted above.
Zazen
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Originally posted by Grimm
HT is right about one thing, I dont want to change countries. Its not just my squad that I wish to fly with. I have many good friends that fly in other squads.
Just another thought, HT your right, I am part of the Issue. I wont change countries. Adding a flight penalty will still not get me to change. I guess that "the Solution" wont have me changing to bolster the low country so in my cause it wont do anything to effect balance.
Perhaps some of the key Rook players and COs could talk about some alternate squad nights to spread things out a bit. But thats more a player solution than a HTC one.
What I wish for is this, decent numbers for each country with the Rooks back on the bottom. The Rooks and some good cross over squads worked hard to build our country into a strong force, its kinda sad to see HTC wanting to squash that hard work. :(
Well, it appears I am slowing sliding in the whining mode. So Ill try to get back on track.
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Using a score multiplier has never been tried (AFAIK), it may or may not work, but we don't know that now.
The reason the perk thing doesn't do the job is that many players have so many perks that they don't need to check the perk price and modifier before choosing a plane or country. I crossed this line after about 6 months in this game.
With score it's a different situation.
Even long time players care about their score, some care little some care a lot. I bet there's enough of both newbs and vets that care enough about their score that a score multiplier would leave a mark in the MA.
A score mod system wouldn't bug many players. A whine like: "I want to fly for the superiour side AND get max score!" wouldn't yield much sympathy... I'm sure...
If it doesn't work at all there will be no harm done.
I really think it would make a difference, although it wouldn't be a "be all, end all" solution to numbers imbalance.
----------------------------------------------------
(A score mod system could also be used to encourage players to fly other planes than the "best".)
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Originally posted by Zazen13
Ahhh , that's much better! I'm satisfied with that formula, it addressed my major concern posted above.
Zazen
Yes that does look much better. Now Im at work I could open the spreadsheet ;) I changed numbers and it does look better.
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Originally posted by Grimm
Perhaps some of the key Rook players and COs could talk about some alternate squad nights to spread things out a bit. But thats more a player solution than a HTC one.
Should have done this months ago. I just find it sad HT has to waste his time on this BS because folks like you can't even things up in the first place. That's the nice version of what I'd like to say anyway.
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I think the die was cast before the thread was started... ;)
No one can argue against having balanced sides and a change in MA game play is not a bad thing.
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Originally posted by Grimm
Just another thought, HT your right, I am part of the Issue. I wont change countries. Adding a flight penalty will still not get me to change. I guess that "the Solution" wont have me changing to bolster the low country so in my cause it wont do anything to effect balance.
You're not the 'swing voter' that is being persued here.
Originally posted by hitech
Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
Rooks percent is only 3.4% above even percentages. So only 1.7% of players need motivated to even the playing field.
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Originally posted by Pyro
I get the feeling that people don't realize that there is already a perk adjustment in the current system. Perk prices and perk point awards are modified by relative country numbers. This is not enough and we don't feel that further increases it will be the answer and will only cause perk point inflation.
.
I think my feeling is that the perk point system, as currently set, doen't give people a feeling of being immediately penalized though. Perk planes, for the most part, are "attention magnets" that rarely are worth the cost, problem #1. The second thing is, the majority of people don't really care how many perk points they earn, they care how many they have currently. That's where the "earning-bonus" part doesn't work that well, people look at their 200 perk points and don't care that their last La7 sortie only added 0.2. Item #3, If you put a perk cost on some of the high performance rides that starts to whittle down the perk points they have if they want to take the better rides out. It puts pressure on them to either accept an "inferior" ride or change countries. The people with the cheap/no cost perks have that little bit of edge granted them by the aircraft they can afford. You could have the perk costs extend pretty deep into the planeset to get the magnification of effect you are looking for... a lot of guys you simply can't take out of a top 5 ride and place them in something else, they'd be meat and their numeric advantage in a fight would likely disappear pretty quickly vs a horde of well equipped defenders.
The sortie rate thing has merit but I think it addresses another issue, that of a lack of attrition modeling. Attrition is such an important concept but isn't modeled in AH. A sortie rate would impose that to the game probably knocking out a lot of other questionable things, like suiciders, mass swarms (no re-enforcements) and then also add in the possibility of mounting a successful defense with fewer numbers (guys you shoot down don't simply come back to vulch you on the re-arm pad).
Great discussion though, lots of ideas to consider.
-Soda
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Originally posted by DipStick
Should have done this months ago. I just find it sad HT has to waste his time on this BS because folks like you can't even things up in the first place. That's the nice version of what I'd like to say anyway.
Dipstick, thanks for keeping it nice.
Our squad isnt a sunday squad, and our squadnights are not normaly all that lopsided. Perhaps Iv missed alot since Iv been too busy in R/L to have much fly time of late.
You say its because of people like me, Yet the last time it was a big problem, it was like minded people that worked hard to fix it. Why does the burden fall to us again in your eyes? why cant other players do the same to build their player base?
Iv added my comments because I do care about AH and how things go. Im trying to be honest so HT can base his decisions on my comments and others.
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I suggest leaving the number thingy as it is.There are more pressing issues,than worrying about being outnumbered.The limited number upping from field in AW was a real pain in the butt.
One shouldn't be told they can't up for awhile,or switch countries.
If the outnumbered counties were given perk planes at no cost,large bonuses for kills,etc.,perhaps that is one way of handling it.The other answer to the numbers dilema,and it won't happen,is to have two countries.WB's,with the rolling Plane set,
seemed to have less problems,as the players didn't seem to have a problem switching sides to even things out,or as it were,to get a better crate to fly!The Luftwobble shined early,and the Allies had the better rides later.
IronDog
475th Fighter Group "Satans Angels"
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Originally posted by Rolex
I think the die was cast before the thread was started... ;)
I think your correct Rolex. The discussion now is to determine the degree at which it would be paletable.
I believe the method is cast in stone with Pyros added comments. The implemation and degree of delay is the discussion.
I'll take myself out. The "problem" doesn't really involve me. I take a break after each sortie, change sides in a heartbeat to find a fight OR radar.
I just have to make the right choice the FIRST time. THAT would be on my list for fiddling ;)
The other answer to the numbers dilema,and it won't happen,is to have two countries.WB's,with the rolling Plane set
Actually that WOULD solve the problem. With 80 in MA after everyone else including me bailed and found another game to play is another option ;)
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I just had a thought. We're all focusing on the numbers thing, but is it really the numbers that irritate everybody?
I mean, I don't care diddly squat what the numbers are. I don't like having to up from vulched bases because there are no other choices and I don't like flying blind for hours on end. Those are the things that irritate me.
If what really irritates people is the symptoms that come with numbers imbalance, maybe those symptoms would be easier to treat without the risk of alienating player/customers.
Just a thought.
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Originally posted by AKcurly
Heck, if it doesn't work, we can always request a change.
Thats pretty much what I said on page 1. What we'll need is some sort of criteria whereby the success or failure can actually be measured. The level of whining on the BBS is not very indicative of the general AH community in my opinion.
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Originally posted by Grimm
You say its because of people like me, Yet the last time it was a big problem, it was like minded people that worked hard to fix it. Why does the burden fall to us again in your eyes? why cant other players do the same to build their player base?
Build their player base? A few squads and lone wolfs from Bish and Knits changed to Rooks to help even the numbers. That's great! That's the only reason Rook numbers are up.
Now the Rook numbers are too high and some Rook squads and lone wolfs need to change to Bish and Knit to even things up again. Is this rocket science?
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Originally posted by hitech
As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.
That's GOT to be an anomaly, I'd have guessed it was 3 times that much.
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Only problem with limiting time is people wont want to pay 15 dollars a month to not play. People are paying the 15 to play, they're not paying to not being able to play.
If people are kicked to even numbers people will get fed up and not play anymore.
Canaris
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HT and Pyro, I'm sure you've considered this but I'm putting it out there for some in the thread that might not have thought about it.
Generally, resets come from the numbers advantage.
If you sufficiently inhibit the "numbers" side, they won't be able to achieve the reset. It leads to stalemate. The "low numbers" side doesn't have the troops to gang their way to glory. The "numbers" side is artificially restricted from ganging their way to glory.
If you insufficiently inhibits the "numbers" side, you merely drag out the inevitable, extending the agony of the "low numbers" side.
My main thought on this is you are treating a symptom rather than the disease.
But, hey, I'll find a place to play on any map most nights.
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Originally posted by hitech
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
Your thoughts?
I'm sorry HiTech, but I don't like this idea. Consider that those who log off will be doing so because they are less than happy.
Here's my suggestion. Accept the fact that country balance will always be lopsided. Then try to minimize the affect this has upon game play. The biggest negative affect is destruction of the arena by the country with the most players. This is compounded as players switch to the winning side. Why have a system that encourages players to take over the arena by ruining game play for others? With each reset you gain unhappy customers. Perhaps you can still have a reset system, but based upon something else, like the extend of destruction of a country's resources.
The land grab initiative is not only destructive of game play, it promotes and sustains unbalanced countries as players migrate to the winning side. But an unbalance in countries would not have such a negative affect if it did not result in the destruction of the arena. Even though outnumbered, fun can be had as long as there is a place to play.
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Originally posted by Toad
HT and Pyro, I'm sure you've considered this but I'm putting it out there for some in the thread that might not have thought about it.
Generally, resets come from the numbers advantage.
If you sufficiently inhibit the "numbers" side, they won't be able to achieve the reset. It leads to stalemate. The "low numbers" side doesn't have the troops to gang their way to glory. The "numbers" side is artificially restricted from ganging their way to glory.
If you insufficiently inhibits the "numbers" side, you merely drag out the inevitable, extending the agony of the "low numbers" side.
My main thought on this is you are treating a symptom rather than the disease.
But, hey, I'll find a place to play on any map most nights.
I'm not sure a stable arena is a bad thing. After all, we change maps weekly. A stable arena leads to interesting fights.
Both Hitech & Pyro have mentioned that perk modification has been insufficient to induce movement among the countries. Well, if you make the modification more severe, it would have an effect. If the country numbers are 300:100:80 and tempests cost 5 points while 262s are 10 points (along with similar changes to enemy values,) I do believe it would have an effect.
curly
curly
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I have to agree with some who have noted that it appears that the decision has been made to implement, and what is left is what the level of consequence should be.
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Pyro,
I'm willing to bet the reason for perk points not being effective is more due to the low demand for the current perk plane set than a systemic faliure of the policy itself. If people had more of a reason to want perks they would be willing to do more to get them. You could do this by adding minor perks to the top 10 planes for example. You could magnify its effect by increasing the perkmodifier but you need a stronger reason for folks to want the reward in the first place.
You will find it quite tough to balance the sides on the short term thanks to queing theory but I bet this will help just as well as a timer in the long run plus there is no extra code. and associated complications.
Originally posted by Pyro
Nice discussion. I would like to add a few points for people to weigh.
In reading this thread, I see people asking for a perk adjustment as a counter proposal. I get the feeling that people don't realize that there is already a perk adjustment in the current system. Perk prices and perk point awards are modified by relative country numbers. This is not enough and we don't feel that further increases it will be the answer and will only cause perk point inflation.
Respawn timers are successfully used in many online FPS games. I have a hard time believing that FPS players have a longer attention span than flight simmers and that they can flourish with a respawn delay and we can't.
To those who object to this, I'd like you to consider whether your objection is to the system or the degree. If you say that this would cause you not to play, would that be the case if delay were 10 seconds? If not, then you object to the degree the system may used and not really to the system itself.
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To those who object to this, I'd like you to consider whether your objection is to the system or the degree. If you say that this would cause you not to play, would that be the case if delay were 10 seconds? If not, then you object to the degree the system may used and not really to the system itself.
Your right then. For me it would not be the system, but the degree. Though since I can't determine the degree I would rather see you go in a different direction. A aid to the underdog or some kind of restriction to the + numbers side.
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We do need to do something about the numbers imbalance.
However I don't like the suggested time limiter solution mainly because it negatively impacts squadron-based players and team cohesion.
I would buy-in to it if there was a way to switch countries as an entire squadron vs. just individual players - e.g. if one player in a squadron switched all the other squad members switch automatically. For squad members in the air at the time, they would switch automatically at the next sortie.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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From what I have read , it sounds like this time thing is a done deal.
Since the AK's only fly Bish, I doubt if this time wait will effect me very much, other than to relieve some of the pressure on us.
I really think more non-intrusive things such as keeping the dar up for the badly outnumbered side/s should be tried first. I don't mind the being badly outnumbered if we can still see. And dar allows a side to plan counter attacks, co-ordinate defense etc. Once the dar is down all that goes out the window, and some players log off, some switch sides, and the situation gets worse.
Keeping the dar up for the badly outnumbered side should be considered even if a time constraint is applied.
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I agree with Toad's assessment, HT's solution addresses the symptom, not the problem. Of course it appears that addressing the issue needs to have the right cost/benefit ratio for HTC meaning that there's only so much it is worth for them to try and code something to address the issue. Not sure where that intersection is but I venture to guess that the simpler the solution the easier it is to implement.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Since the numbers imbalance is something that affects the entire user base of AH the solution should be something that all of the user base contributes to. There are some interesting ideas here but I really don’t see any of them really bringing a level of balance (numbers) to the arena. If action is required then it should be drastic and restrictive.
What if the entire user base was arbitrarily assigned to a random country? If you are a member of a squadron then whatever country your CO was assigned that’s where you would be too. The system would assign one 30 member squad to Knights, then another 30 member squad to Rooks and etc. If you wanted to “switch” countries than there would be a way to try to trade with another squad from that country. If I had a squad of 20 members I would have to find a squad willing to trade me from the other country and had a membership of 19-21 pilots.
Individual pilots would have to find other non-aligned pilots to trade with as well. The numbers would be artificially maintained by some HTC database/web page interface to accomplish all this. If numbers were starting to fall out of line the system would compensate by putting all new accounts into the smallest nation and/or halting all other trades until a balance of sorts has been achieved.
Something as harsh as this is the only way I see of controlling numbers.
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Originally posted by flakbait
Good idea, but I don't think it'll pan out. As others have said before, limiting a person's ability to fly will cause some to log out. Whether its a few seconds or a few minutes, if you're on the side with greatest numbers you still want to wing up and pound targets. Having a message say "System: You can not fly for 15 seconds" would really annoy some folks. Limiting (some would say punishing) the individual would merely slow down the Mongolian Horde based on loss rate. The more Rooks shot down, the slower the Horde can wing up again because nobody can fly for the next 30 seconds. Once that 30 seconds is up, though, you've got a large group that suddenly took to the air. Right now it's a flowing system where you've got aircraft constantly taking off, landing, or transiting to or from a target. With this proposal in place you'd wind up with clumps of planes instead of a stream.
Instead of putting a traffic cop on the runway to limit re-up time, limit troops and ord. The supply system we have now allows for unlimited bombs, rockets, fuel, and troops to take fields. The strat system produces these unlimited numbers regardless of country size. It's a factor that hasn't changed since Warbirds. Here's a few ideas along these lines that would slow down the land-grab.
1) Ramp up the number of troops required to take a field based on distance from your troop training facility.
2) Change the number of troops needed to invade a field based on field size. It's logical, the bigger the field the more people required to take it and run it.
3) The farther you get from your supply lines, the less replacements and ord you receive.
4) Implement dynamic supply ships as more of an incentive to take ports. If Bishops take P22, supply ships would steam from the closest Bish port to P22. This would eliminate, or reduce, the supply line problem above. It would also give subs and aircraft a more target-rich environment. Want to slow down the enemy advance into your territory? Blow some supply ships.
Without enough bombs and rockets, you can't pound fields flat enough to take them. And with troops in short supply, there's no way to actually take the place. Which results in the largest country slowing down as they over-extend their supply lines. Once they take a port or two, that lack of supplies isn't such a concern. Though to avoid saturating the only two ports each country has, a supply port might warrant creation. Aside from taking the hefty burden off the limited number of ports, it would also provide a hugely tempting target of stockpiled supplies.
I really like flakbait's idea. The proposal of limiting resources would be a great way to even things up a bit. More people would start taking ord from their base for the better. About 2% of all the rooks take ord up ON THEIR OWN on an average flight. Most of em just up spits, la7's n1ks, 51s and 109's with no ord. By limiting ord it would force planes to take more up because they wouldnt necessarily be able to...say.. 15 minutes later. All missions will have ord reserved at that airbase however they can not go over the maximum allowed limit within that mission.
I also like the idea of the number of troops to take a certain sized base.
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Originally posted by Canaris
Only problem with limiting time is people wont want to pay 15 dollars a month to not play. People are paying the 15 to play, they're not paying to not being able to play.
If people are kicked to even numbers people will get fed up and not play anymore.
They ARE paying to play. And that is apart of the gameplay HT has proposed. Just because you can't fly doesnt mean you aren't playing the game.
And I do not recall anyone being kicked because their country had more numbers than the other..? :confused:
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Originally posted by DipStick
Build their player base? A few squads and lone wolfs from Bish and Knits changed to Rooks to help even the numbers. That's great! That's the only reason Rook numbers are up.
Now the Rook numbers are too high and some Rook squads and lone wolfs need to change to Bish and Knit to even things up again. Is this rocket science?
Well, I can agree and disagree. If some squads did switch along with a bunch of lone wolves, it would help balance. Naw, its not rocket science.
Your comment about squad switch is the only reason, is not entirerly accurate. I can see why you would say that. Thats all you saw. You were not part of the hundereds of emails and things that helped to build our player base. How could you credit something you didnt experience.
Anyway, its not really important, but it was a combination of things.
Lets agree with this, the players can help improve this situation. Its probably is redudant at this point since forced balance appears to be on the way.
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Using the current proposal, consider this situation.
A Large push to reset the arena is going on. Rooks have 320 pilots up, the Knights are getting ganged and are down to about 3-4 fields. Many Knights log because the reset seems to be on the way, only about 50 hang tuff.
In that scenario, if you got shot down as a Rook your going to have to wait 25mins or more to fly.
It appears the best tatic to prevent a reset for the smallest country would be to log and delay the others as long as possible.
It does appear that this will hamper resets.
Perhaps there should be a Cap on the maxium flight delay?? maybe not?
I suppose if you have to wait a half hour to fly, it would really push some folks to switch.
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Originally posted by Grizzly
Why have a system that encourages players to take over the arena by ruining game play for others?...
Perhaps you can still have a reset system, but based upon something else, like the extend of destruction of a country's resources....
The land grab initiative is not only destructive of game play, it promotes and sustains unbalanced countries as players migrate to the winning side...
Grizzly does have some pretty valid points here.
Do we ever think of doing away with the current reset/land grab system?
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I'm not sure if this compliment has been submitted. The Rooks have impressed me as to their ability to fly as a country in the manner squads would like to fly as small groups.
I fly for Knight land. I decided to test this by attempting to work on the hoard starting at 30k. As a group those lower than me would move lower or extend away. If I did cut out someone from the group, very soon there after a concerted effort showed up to chase/kill me and I had to run.
I repeated these incursions at 20k, 15k, and 8k. In all cases if I could not press my kill in the first pass, the Rook would not engage but lead me to several higher freinds or down to a lower group. I watched from 10k, Knight feild defenders up and at low alt run out to meet groups of Rooks who would lead them around, string them out, and start picking them off. But not engage in the traditional Furball. When Rooks did engage, it was with wingman tactics.
I watched this all over the map where Rooks flew always in groups.
It seems they are aware of how much has been acomplished in their country cohesiveness, and I cannot balme them that they do not want to give up all of that hard work.
My hat is off to the Rooks for doing a good job. :aok
Maybe the real solution is to work on our own countries cohesiveness.:)
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The Perk system would work as it was originally intended if you could use the perk rides without the neon tag. The only perk rides who's performance is worth the tag is the 262 and Tiger. Everything else, like the Spit 14, Ta152 and the F4U-4 would get used a lot more if your enemy didnt know what version they were. You dont know when you first see a 109 if its an E-4 or a G-10, or a Spit if its a Mk I or a Mk 9, accordingly, you should not know that a person is flying an F4U-4 or a Spit 14 until you get really close.
If that was done, perks (and the modifier) would have a meaningful effect and you wouldn't have to have a respawn timer.
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Originally posted by nopoop
If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??
Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??
That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.
I like this.:aok
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This Delay will make matters worse. You are going to effectively create more mission oriented flights by the team with the numbers! While waiting they will just join the mission instead of waiting for the next time slot.
I doubt it will make people change countries. Its hard to break friendships and bonds that have been going on for years. Not saying nobody will jump ship, because some will. But the organization that will be happening will get alot less of the hordes killed.
BTW im Bish and oppose this. Limiting gameplay for anyone is wrong. It seems your goal will be more to get players to change countries than it is to make the delay happen. If that works great, problem solved. If not then you have angry players who just log off...Been to Vegas lately?
This change shouldnt effect my squad, Bish will not have to worry about delays.:D
RHIN0
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Aces High's greatest strength and greatest weakness is its mostly unstructured game play that allows players the greatest freedom in choosing how they want to play whenever they sign on.
Most constraints in any business, e.g. perk ride limitations, are customer negatives because they are perceived as losses of rights rather than incentives or benefits.
Restricting choice of side or adding a limitation on when or how long you can play with this or that is risky -- customers would get less value for their money for the elusive goal of promoting more balanced fights when, ironically, not everybody fights the same battle anyway or even cares which side "wins."
IF additional steps are necessary to better balance sides, why not simply rotate country assignments as players log on? If some players or squads insist on a particular country, they could be assigned a number like waiting for a fast food order.
And like fast food it wouldn't take long before they would get the country they ordered.
For example: Thanks for signing on. To balance sides, you can immediately play as a Knight. If you prefer to wait for the next Rook vacancy, select R. If you prefer to wait for the next Bishop vacancy, select B. Waiting time is about 2 minutes for R and 5 minutes for B.
Voila! McAces High!
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Originally posted by Murdr
Just wanted to disagree on the one point. If JoeRook and I want to fly together, and I cant switch to his country, he can always switch to mine. Hence we arent really limited. If just wanted to fly the high# country, and I couldnt, yes it is a limit on where I can fly, but I can still fly as often and quickly regardless of what country Im in.
Thank You Murdr!!! :aok
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would it be possible to adjust the damage the bullets and bombs do? the country or countries that have numbers the damage factor for them to be adjusted depending on how uneven it is? so it might take 4000lbs to kill fighter hanger instead of 3000 to kill the FH of the country that has 20% or what ever the % is less players, then 3500lbs to kill FH instead of 3000 for the country thats 2nd in numbers and the standard 3000 lbs to kill FH for country that has the numbers, it might take 25 or 50 more hits on a plane to down it. something like that. I may be suggesting something that may not be able to be done or may take way too much work. seems that if something like this could be done having the country send two p51's (two players) to kill some thing that usually take's 1 p51 and if they have to use 25 to 50 more rounds to kill a plane , would even out the numbers with having to rtb etc... ((((((((( should only be done if numbers are way outa line))))))).. . have a spot on clipboard that says if there is a adjustment in effect or not.... only problem i see with all of this , there seems to be lots of people that jump to the countries that are ahead in search of perks, even though it says you have to be in that country 12 hours before you can get'm, then they are there for the min 12 hours . sometimes if numbers are even as soon as one country get ahead (for sure when on a roll) here they come, even if perks are not the issue being on the winning side means alot to some people. so not sure if any of this stuff will get the results people want... LMAO it may cause more problems no matter what is tried, people wanting avoid any of all these sugestions, switching to the country that THEY Think has the advantage.......
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any person that cant wait 3 mins for up to 10 mins to 40 mins of flight time needs help
i would never leave this game over a 4 min wait when my country is huge in numbers
what you all fear is that the rooks wont leave there huge country and you wont ether so you may have to wait 4 mins to fly for 35 mins
but if you cant stand the wait why not move to the nights or bishops easy as that
if its about the its my 15$ thing well should i whine about not flying my tempest all the time because its my 15$
this is the best online flight sim iv ever played and im not leaving for such a dumb thing nor should anybody
and why cant you meet new people on other countrys?
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As I stated in a earlier thread, soldiers get paid for their service. Why not pay people in perk points when they are flying. If a person is flying for a country with low numbers they get paid more. If they are in a La7 they would get paid less then someone in the same country who is flying a P-40.
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Originally posted by Xargos
As I stated in a earlier thread, soldiers get paid for their service. Why not pay people in perk points when they are flying. If a person is flying for a country with low numbers they get paid more. If they are in a La7 they would get paid less then someone in the same country who is flying a P-40.
because they dont care about money(perks) because they get everthing free
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Originally posted by Xargos
As I stated in a earlier thread, soldiers get paid for their service. Why not pay people in perk points when they are flying. If a person is flying for a country with low numbers they get paid more. If they are in a La7 they would get paid less then someone in the same country who is flying a P-40.
That is the present setup. Apparently, it's not enough to balance the arena.
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I still think this is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. There's no logic to it, other than being a quick fix to a serious problem. Quick fixes to serious problems never work. Here's what you're promoting HT:
1) No comaraderie at all. You want people to side-switch to balance the numbers for you. And to do that, you're putting a traffic cop on the runway with a stopwatch. It's no different than using a cattle prod. You'll implement a "feature" people detest so they move where you want 'em to. Which results in...
2) Breaking up squads. A 20-man squad switches sides and suddenly that country now has a time limit imposed. What do you think will happen once folks find out who switched to cause it? Flame warz galore. As a result squads will end up not being huge, functional squadrons. They'll end up being no more than five people. Squaddies wing up together because they're friends. Small problem: it's either put up with the stopwatch or swap sides. Either way squaddies won't be able to gather in one country. Some will get pissed and vamoos to another country. Thus busting up the squad.
3) You want to slow down the Mongolian Horde land-grab, but you're picking the most backwards way to do it. Instead of implementing changes to the strat system no one has seen before, you're using an "annoy the people" technique. Simply because that technique is faster to implement than changing an antequated system. Yes, antequated. Read my earlier post to see more on that subject.
4) You want the attitude on this BBS and in the game to improve, yet you're saying the exact opposite by sticking a dumb time limit in. People's attitudes won't change for the better, they'll get worse. You'll break up squads, piss people off, make 'em wait after getting shot down and for what? To slow down the Horde? How many other ideas have been posted that might, or could, work infinitely better than your's?
5) Using a time limit will take the trickle and turn it into several waves. Instead of the little guy facing down two or three enemy aircraft, he's now looking at five or ten. Putting the right respawn wave at the right target will negate this time limit completely and result in the same Horde-based land-grab. Only with double the numbers hitting a given target thanks to the 30 second wait.
Large changes are required to fix this problem, not quick fixes dreamed up over night. Does it have merrit? Most definitely! Will it work? If your intention is to make even more people angry, then yes. Otherwise it'll be a dismal failure.
For Pyro:
Doug, this isn't an online FPS game where insta-spawn can give you mega kills or that WunderShield or the BFG 9000. It's an aerial combat game. To get the bonuses here you don't have to run around the corner, grab the key, shoot the demon and get the gun. You have to fly several minutes in a given direction, think your way in, and then attack. It takes much longer to get a single kill here than it does in UT2k4. How many minutes did you have to fly for in order to bag your last kill? 5? 6? In 5 or 6 minutes in any FPS you can bag two dozen kills or more. My personal record in UT2k4 stands at 33 bots dead in ten minutes. That's why they have a respawn time of 5 seconds or so. To prevent mass scores from being run up. It's part of a system. You randomize the spawn location, give the player 5-15 seconds before respawn, and then it's back to work. Using tricks from FPS games in AH won't work because those tricks are built for FPS games, not flight games.
I'll say it again: If you want to slow down the Mongolian Horde you can not simply slap a respawn time limit in and call it magically fixed. Actual work has to be done to improve the strat system that hasn't changed in basic function since 1995. Slowing down the Horde requires actual supply limits. No more unlimited everything unless your field's bunkers have been plastered. Limited bombs, limited rockets, and limited troops based on actual lag time to ship those items from the factory to the front. The supply system is already in place to allow for this. What has to be done for it to work is implementation of hard limits on supplies. If you don't have trucks delivering your bombs and rockets, you will run out of them. If there's no supply ships moving freight into the port you took, you can't advance the front lines because things are in such short supply. Realistic adjustment factors that really happen will stop the Horde, not a "System: you can't fly for 40 seconds" message.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/unsuperv.gif)
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Originally posted by Toad
HT and Pyro, I'm sure you've considered this but I'm putting it out there for some in the thread that might not have thought about it.
Generally, resets come from the numbers advantage.
If you sufficiently inhibit the "numbers" side, they won't be able to achieve the reset. It leads to stalemate. The "low numbers" side doesn't have the troops to gang their way to glory. The "numbers" side is artificially restricted from ganging their way to glory.
If you insufficiently inhibits the "numbers" side, you merely drag out the inevitable, extending the agony of the "low numbers" side.
My main thought on this is you are treating a symptom rather than the disease.
But, hey, I'll find a place to play on any map most nights.
At present. This is true.
But are you saying that even numbers will stop the ability to win a war?
If so..then this will be very telling of our ability to plan stratagey.
I remember clearly a period of about 4 months when the sides were basically even. The fighting was ferice the war was tough but there were resets plenty.
It makes for very healthy game play. And above all...I causes the countries to work together. We have witnessed it right here in this game somewhere from about late summer to late fall of 2003.
On another note.
I think we need to remember that the solution needs to be one that can be done without a total overhaul of the Code.
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Originally posted by DipStick
Should have done this months ago. I just find it sad HT has to waste his time on this BS because folks like you can't even things up in the first place. That's the nice version of what I'd like to say anyway.
Nice polite shot their DipStick. But still a shot. Take a look at HT's player percentage break down.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
Its not a massive spread between the countries. What happens is that some squads work very hard and have worked very hard to turn out players and make things fun their buddies on a consistent basis.
Rooks were in the hole and spent 2+ years working to address it by 1) recruiting more people into their squads, 2) working to turn out more of their pilots on a consistent basis (establising a monthly event to look forward too .. RJOs only happen once every 3 - 4 weeks .. and during the beta period went on hiatus for a while), 3) squads emailing each other and working with each other .. not just on a squad level but posting missions with the mission editor so that a couple 3 or 4 person element on a squad can group together and have fun and feeling of being something larger.
Yes, some squads came over from countries too .. but it was not a massive influx. There was a lot of hard work by a lot of people to try to find a community base solution. You and others may dismiss that or not believe it but it was done after over 3 year straight of being on the low man on the totem pole.
And yes, Rooks have done things to try to balance things. They have not held regular RJOs (which used to happen once a month .. get used to working together on a multi-squad level and even without formalize things it still tend to happen to a lesser degree). When they have they tried to evenly split the squads on both fronts (of those participating). Several squads have made it policy of attacking the stronger country not the weaker in numbers. Not all do this but some .. at times it like trying to steer a bull elephant .. you can only nudge.
Things have been tried and an effort has been made and several posts have been posted about discussing what was done to help work out of the hole. Ripsnort gave us advice way back when of what the Knights did to get more organized with MAG-33. I now have posted and email others on the same subject saying will to discuss and see what I can do.
All countries don't like switching to other countries. Even HiTech pointed that out as a consistent.
The timer issue is worth an attempt but I don't think it will address the cause of problem but only the symptons.
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Looking at Flkbaits post i do agree that there are many troubling issues with the proposal.
I did notice several replies that mentioned the system that i disclosed on page 3 of this thread.
Please dont grill me for quoting myself. But i still think this old system would be VERY effective in acheiving the required result. And i will do so in such a way that it Will not make Subscribers feel like they are being charged for sitting in a tower.
QUOTE]Originally posted by Mugzeee
B]What if… Each zone had an allotted number of flight slots. If the slots were currently full…then you would have to launch from another base say 50 to 75 miles away or wait till some one else moved to a different zone.
This could work well to disperse the Hoards. Because you would have to wait…or chose another base of operations…The new base of operations being far enough from the original base that your fuel would be rather low by the time you made it to the zone you were originally trying to Hoard…err fly in. :D
Could work to deter hoarding or gangbanging.
Aces High with its zone structure could maybe benefit from this setup.
BTW…this isn’t new. Nor is it my own idea. ;)
But I loved it. :) [/B][/QUOTE]
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Hitech could change the icon colors for the 3 countries, then on Sundays when the Rooks have their joint operations, the Bishops and Knights can have a 24 hour truce and gang up on the Rooks.:D
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I have to agree, Make the strat system workable, or downtimes flexable. I pointed this out in a previous post. I posted where the problem could be attacked. I left out the "perk" points and ENY values because I personally didn't think this would change anything. this point could be cemented by just looking at how many perk points some people have stored up.
I believe the strat or "hardness" could be changed according to team number strenght. But HOW would the players KNOW what the new hardness would be. Also the time down or resupply could be changed this would probably be the easiest way to impliment. For example if it takes X amount of bombs to take down a fighter hanger and with the "muliplier it now takes X plus 1 bomb to take it down How would the player KNOW or it could even change while inflight. Therefor the the dilema.
NUTTZ
Originally posted by flakbait
I still think this is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. There's no logic to it, other than being a quick fix to a serious problem. Quick fixes to serious problems never work. Here's what you're promoting HT:
1) No comaraderie at all. You want people to side-switch to balance the numbers for you. And to do that, you're putting a traffic cop on the runway with a stopwatch. It's no different than using a cattle prod. You'll implement a "feature" people detest so they move where you want 'em to. Which results in...
2) Breaking up squads. A 20-man squad switches sides and suddenly that country now has a time limit imposed. What do you think will happen once folks find out who switched to cause it? Flame warz galore. As a result squads will end up not being huge, functional squadrons. They'll end up being no more than five people. Squaddies wing up together because they're friends. Small problem: it's either put up with the stopwatch or swap sides. Either way squaddies won't be able to gather in one country. Some will get pissed and vamoos to another country. Thus busting up the squad.
3) You want to slow down the Mongolian Horde land-grab, but you're picking the most backwards way to do it. Instead of implementing changes to the strat system no one has seen before, you're using an "annoy the people" technique. Simply because that technique is faster to implement than changing an antequated system. Yes, antequated. Read my earlier post to see more on that subject.
4) You want the attitude on this BBS and in the game to improve, yet you're saying the exact opposite by sticking a dumb time limit in. People's attitudes won't change for the better, they'll get worse. You'll break up squads, piss people off, make 'em wait after getting shot down and for what? To slow down the Horde? How many other ideas have been posted that might, or could, work infinitely better than your's?
5) Using a time limit will take the trickle and turn it into several waves. Instead of the little guy facing down two or three enemy aircraft, he's now looking at five or ten. Putting the right respawn wave at the right target will negate this time limit completely and result in the same Horde-based land-grab. Only with double the numbers hitting a given target thanks to the 30 second wait.
Large changes are required to fix this problem, not quick fixes dreamed up over night. Does it have merrit? Most definitely! Will it work? If your intention is to make even more people angry, then yes. Otherwise it'll be a dismal failure.
For Pyro:
Doug, this isn't an online FPS game where insta-spawn can give you mega kills or that WunderShield or the BFG 9000. It's an aerial combat game. To get the bonuses here you don't have to run around the corner, grab the key, shoot the demon and get the gun. You have to fly several minutes in a given direction, think your way in, and then attack. It takes much longer to get a single kill here than it does in UT2k4. How many minutes did you have to fly for in order to bag your last kill? 5? 6? In 5 or 6 minutes in any FPS you can bag two dozen kills or more. My personal record in UT2k4 stands at 33 bots dead in ten minutes. That's why they have a respawn time of 5 seconds or so. To prevent mass scores from being run up. It's part of a system. You randomize the spawn location, give the player 5-15 seconds before respawn, and then it's back to work. Using tricks from FPS games in AH won't work because those tricks are built for FPS games, not flight games.
I'll say it again: If you want to slow down the Mongolian Horde you can not simply slap a respawn time limit in and call it magically fixed. Actual work has to be done to improve the strat system that hasn't changed in basic function since 1995. Slowing down the Horde requires actual supply limits. No more unlimited everything unless your field's bunkers have been plastered. Limited bombs, limited rockets, and limited troops based on actual lag time to ship those items from the factory to the front. The supply system is already in place to allow for this. What has to be done for it to work is implementation of hard limits on supplies. If you don't have trucks delivering your bombs and rockets, you will run out of them. If there's no supply ships moving freight into the port you took, you can't advance the front lines because things are in such short supply. Realistic adjustment factors that really happen will stop the Horde, not a "System: you can't fly for 40 seconds" message.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
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Originally posted by Xargos
As I stated in a earlier thread, soldiers get paid for their service. Why not pay people in perk points when they are flying. If a person is flying for a country with low numbers they get paid more. If they are in a La7 they would get paid less then someone in the same country who is flying a P-40.
Also make 95% of the planes perked. When a new player comes on he will have an X number of perk points to start off with. If you blow all of your perks you will be limited to a set number of the 5% free rides. In this way the perks will be much more valuable.
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Originally posted by hitech
Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
As I have been reading the responses this morning somthing struck me. Most of the responses not wanting the time limit all had one thing in common.
Each person did not wish to give up their country to balance the numbers. And because they were not willing to change sides they didn't want the time limit. Well isn't this the basic problem we have right now? That people are not willing to change sides, they want some one else to have to change sides. Or they want to give somthing else to the underdog to apease them, but they are not willing to give up anything to solve the issue.
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.
I belive that most players would like to see the sides more evenly balanced. And most of the alterntive sugestions do not provide much motivation for people to change sides. They also would be extreamly difficult to predict what the outcome would be.
As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 120 0.00
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 140 1.32
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 140 0.00
Rooks 200 5.92
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 130 0.00
Rooks 200 6.66
If there is only a 5.6% Differance between the lowest and highest countries WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? .I just spent $300.00 on new HOTAS to fly. not sit in tower holding my winky.
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That it averages out over the week in now way minimizes the lop sided spikes that occur at times during the week.
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Flackbait, ignor mode went on when you opened with this line.
I still think this is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.
HiTech
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Originally posted by Mike0001
Originally posted by hitech
Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.
Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %
As I have been reading the responses this morning somthing struck me. Most of the responses not wanting the time limit all had one thing in common.
Each person did not wish to give up their country to balance the numbers. And because they were not willing to change sides they didn't want the time limit. Well isn't this the basic problem we have right now? That people are not willing to change sides, they want some one else to have to change sides. Or they want to give somthing else to the underdog to apease them, but they are not willing to give up anything to solve the issue.
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.
I belive that most players would like to see the sides more evenly balanced. And most of the alterntive sugestions do not provide much motivation for people to change sides. They also would be extreamly difficult to predict what the outcome would be.
As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 120 0.00
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 120 0.00
Rooks 140 1.32
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 140 0.00
Rooks 200 5.92
Count Mins Wait
Bish 100 0.00
Knights 130 0.00
Rooks 200 6.66
If there is only a 5.6% Differance between the lowest and highest countries WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? .I just spent $300.00 on new HOTAS to fly. not sit in tower holding my winky.
I don’t think HT was using this record to illustrate that there is a numbers problem. Im thinking it was to disclose the direction he would have to go to devise a formula to implement his proposal.
Looking at his reply we notice that he was trying to find "Averages" to find the formula.
Originally posted by hitech
Flackbait, ignor mode went on when you opened with this line.
HiTech
Flk...Thats something i would do. Doh!!:p
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I tottaly disagree with flack bait.
Sorti rate in effect levels the numbers automatically. Forces the upper side to be more careful with landing. forces hordes to consider launching from bigger fields. Would increase the value of bigger fields.(thats really why there were bigger fields..to launch bigger planes and higher rate of sortis in worse weather)
People act like this is some fantasy concept. It is not. It is a very real and important war waging concern. What rate can you launch sortis at, especially how many per day.
I think its better to make it a centeral part of the game. Its a way more interesting strat issue then we currently have.
You could increase the sorti rate vs the other big country and decrease it vs the underdog country.
Really its self evident that this is a great game play mechanism if it could be made to work. the biggest issue is detecting the real ballance of force between two of the three countries. Not between one of the countries and both the others.
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You asked for opinions, HT, that one just happens to be mine. I don't think it'll work for reasons detailed previously. You'd like the attitude around here to improve, yet promote an idea that will do the opposite. You have said in the past, many times, you don't want to punish people unnecessarily. That's exactly what you're doing with this idea. Yes, I do think it's the worst idea in the long sad history of bad ideas. And yes, I do believe there are many other options open for you to explore. If you choose to ignore posts, that's your perogative. I didn't intend to insult you personally, I simply wanted to drive my point home. There are much better ways to stop the Horde mentality in the MA. The method you thought up is simply one of the worst options available.
HT, you literally asked for it! :D
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
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Gentlemen:
Just my perspective here:
1. Imbalance is not a problem its part of the game. I personaly enjoy the callenge of turning back a large overwhelming base attack...some times turns out successful....sometimes it doesn't. Churchill never went to Hitler asking for pilots to balance out the fight.
2. Secondly the changes offered here even if i agreed with them I don't beleive they will be successful in there stated objective. This game is not about planes and tanks.....It is a community much like AW was..and this can not be taken lightly......I spend as much time and effort developing friend and foe relationships (hopfully all positive) as I do flying....I find it extremely rewarding flying with my squad (tatertot included) and honoring my opponets with my best efforts. I think people look forward as I do to the enemy..and these changes would negatively impact REAL GAMEPLAY.
3. I don't question the motives of Hitech I appreciate his efforts.
I just beleive this is a slipper road to go down and where does it end.......Reminds me of youth sports where everyone has to win the scores all have to tie and you kiss everyone at the end of the game.......I don't remember Churchill ever Kissin Hitler.
and Good Hunting!
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flackbait: If you can not see the diference between stating your opion on an idea, and telling us we have a long history of bad ideas, then I do belive you must be one of the most ingorent person on this planet.
HiTech
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I am on board with this proposal. Or this in combination with my similar one.
I think the logistics end of it should also come into play though in some form.
It wouldnt ground anyone from any side And wouldnt force anyone to change sides or log off
But rather would encourage the fight to spread out more evenly.
It would be harder to concentrate on only 1 country and push the larger country to fight both the smaller countries more evenly.
It would basically have the same effect that the idea behind the 3 country arena is supposed to.
Current perk system could remain in place.
Another plus to all this is it could be in effect for all sides reguardless of numbers. And it wouldnt have to have a triggering system of which side has the most numbers
the triggering system would be in place for all sides for Say anything beyond the numbers used in a decent sized furball And then perhaps start out with ammo shortages.
Furballers dont tend to carry much ord anyway
Originally posted by Mugzeee
Looking at Flkbaits post i do agree that there are many troubling issues with the proposal.
I did notice several replies that mentioned the system that i disclosed on page 3 of this thread.
Please dont grill me for quoting myself. But i still think this old system would be VERY effective in acheiving the required result. And i will do so in such a way that it Will not make Subscribers feel like they are being charged for sitting in a tower.
QUOTE]Originally posted by Mugzeee
B]What if… Each zone had an allotted number of flight slots. If the slots were currently full…then you would have to launch from another base say 50 to 75 miles away or wait till some one else moved to a different zone.
This could work well to disperse the Hoards. Because you would have to wait…or chose another base of operations…The new base of operations being far enough from the original base that your fuel would be rather low by the time you made it to the zone you were originally trying to Hoard…err fly in. :D
Could work to deter hoarding or gangbanging.
Aces High with its zone structure could maybe benefit from this setup.
BTW…this isn’t new. Nor is it my own idea. ;)
But I loved it. :)
[/B][/QUOTE]
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Originally posted by Ghosth
The idea of a sortie timer, or having to wait will put field defense at a disadvantage.
On the contrary.
If you are having to wait in the tower...then your country has enough players to defend said base/bases.
The question is? will they?
Ahhh the sigh of relief. Almost 300 replies!!!
And a nice constructive discussion. :)
WTG ALL
!
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Originally posted by Mugzeee
Ahhh the sigh of relief. Almost 300 replies!!!
And a nice constructive discussion. :)
WTG ALL
!
and probably in near record time I might add :)
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On a negative note. The participants represent a very small portion of the subscribers.
I really wish more players would frequent the BBS to partake in such important issues.
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Originally posted by Arlo
SERVER: Plane selection limited to aircraft with an ENY value of 50 or higher due to side disparity
WHAT ARLO SAID!!!!!!
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Originally posted by CurtissP-6EHawk
WHAT ARLO SAID!!!!!!
DID I MENTION WHAT ARLO SAID?
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HT, that isn't what I said or what I meant. You're reading something into it that doesn't exist. I quote
Originally posted by flakbait:
I still think it's the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas
No where in there does it say "the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas from HTC." The long, sad history of bad ideas includes such things as the gas-powered potato peeler and the plutonium car battery. I did not mean, imply, or say every idea coming from your office sucked. A lot of the ideas that come out of HTC are great ones. Player controlled carriers, mannable AA guns, movable head views, supply convoys/trains, excellent bomb sight calibration, bomb dispersion, swing-out clipboard menus, right-click support for additional options, and a whole host of other ones too numerous to count!
I think the idea you cooked up to deal with a very serious problem stinks. Which is why I said that and gave a list of reasons I believe make it unworkable. If you feel otherwise, post a list of reasons why you think it will work. Don't just take all this as a personal attack because it isn't one. I'm attacking your idea because I don't like it, I'm not attacking you. If you can't see the difference between the two, perhaps you need to hop in your RV-8 and blow off a little steam. Smell the gas fumes, pull Gs until the wings groan, and master the Avalanche. Then come back clear headed and we can go round and round as to why it can or can't work.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
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If that is what you ment, then except my apologies.
HiTEch
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Originally posted by hitech
Flackbait, ignor mode went on when you opened with this line.
HiTech
I'm getting the impression that this has already been decided upon, and the only thing your "feeling" out is the length of time the player has to wait.
Unfortunate, myself and many, many, many, many others think it's a horrible idea. SEVERAL (tooting own horn here) have pointed out the obvious solution (imho) of changing the strat reup times. I would now be posting (again) how that could be effectively implemented, but it would only be ignored (sorry ignor ), so I won't bother.
Just PLEASE keep it as small a wait time as possible. What might work for 2-4 hours during prime time, will get totally out of whack during the other 20 hours in the day.
Please re-read the last paragraph. It's VERY important.
For exp. Early this morning (5am cent. ish) I logged on for a couple quick hops. The Rooks were down to only 3-5 fields, and most had logged. The numbers were @ like this
Knit 40
Bish 40
Rook 15
With the system you are propsing, I would have to wait 10-20 min (plug it into the spread sheet for exact #'s) to reup after my sorties. Let's see...would I wait 20min or log in frustration? Yup. i'd just log. This happens enough, and BOOM you just lost a customer. Nobody would log on during odd times, or their lunch break for a few quick hops, only to have to wait 10 min. between them. You would end up with just one sortie, and it would stop being worth it. Many just wouldn't bother anymore. Ok sure, I would keep the account open for a bit, and you would still get your 14.95, but I would start looking elsewhere for my "fix"
This is a terrible idea. Period. Your are trying to set up a system based on only a limited time frame (i.e. prime time) that get's totally out of whack during other times (i.e. the 100 pilots flying at 4am cent) You are looking at this with a very narrow scope/focus. Bottom line here is that in NO way this could possible work out to be a GOOD thing. Expect the numbers to even out somewhat due to your newly lost customer base that also will not wait 20min to fly a sortie.
While I applaud your efforts on trying to find a solution, I also do not think it's broken. I am a Knight, and I am usually outnumbered. I LOVE the fact that last couple sundays, we were able to STOP the Rooks dead in their tracks. Last sunday knit's only lost 4 bases to the Rook #'s (they had us by 100pilots at one time) and the Sund. b4 we also held them down. At one time or another, each country has been out numbered. Big deal. That is the way it is. (insert Circle of Life song here) This will sort itself out just fine.
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I still believe that skewing the perks for planes will work.
Right now say you are outnumbered 2 to 1 by the Rooks (not usual for Bish), The Knights are hammering at one side, and the Rooks are swarming all over.
You check out the perk rides: ME-262 is about 100 points. You may take off with it, but you may get vulched landing (has happened to me, we had 2 airfields left (3 when I took off) , I was out of fuel and an A20 got me. I lost a 100 points.
If the jet had been about 25, there would have been enough of my buddies in jets to push back the hordes.
7 point 163's, 5 point Tempests, and 2 point F4U-4s. Keep the dar up no matter what, and see if the Bish can't take the fight to the neme.
I believe that one of the reasons the perk system doesn't work is the Please attack me first, I'm a perk icons, make the Spit 14 a Spit, and the F4U-4 a F4U (like the F4U-C), etc, and I am sure more people will want to fly the perk rides.
And then maybe more people will want perk points, and will switch sides to get the points and the rides.
Such a strategy would be non-invasive.
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Originally posted by hitech
If that is what you ment, then except my apologies.
HiTech
quote edited for a typo
Readily accepted, HT! Thanks for being a stand-up guy about all this. But to get back to the point, why do you think a respawn time limit will work as opposed to the other ideas folks have posted?
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
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Originally posted by Grits
The Perk system would work as it was originally intended if you could use the perk rides without the neon tag. The only perk rides who's performance is worth the tag is the 262 and Tiger. Everything else, like the Spit 14, Ta152 and the F4U-4 would get used a lot more if your enemy didnt know what version they were. You dont know when you first see a 109 if its an E-4 or a G-10, or a Spit if its a Mk I or a Mk 9, accordingly, you should not know that a person is flying an F4U-4 or a Spit 14 until you get really close.
If that was done, perks (and the modifier) would have a meaningful effect and you wouldn't have to have a respawn timer.
Agree 100%
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Originally posted by simshell
any person that cant wait 3 mins for up to 10 mins to 40 mins of flight time needs help
i would never leave this game over a 4 min wait when my country is huge in numbers
what you all fear is that the rooks wont leave there huge country and you wont ether so you may have to wait 4 mins to fly for 35 mins
but if you cant stand the wait why not move to the nights or bishops easy as that
if its about the its my 15$ thing well should i whine about not flying my tempest all the time because its my 15$
this is the best online flight sim iv ever played and im not leaving for such a dumb thing nor should anybody
and why cant you meet new people on other countrys?
There is a big difference you are missing. See, when I signed up, there was no rule requiring me to sit through a waiting period between flights. But the Tempest was already perked. Meaning the agreement changes after the "contract was signed".
And no, it is NOT "that easy" to switch sides. And I don't WANT to switch sides, neither does my squad.
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Originally posted by flyingaround
For exp. Early this morning (5am cent. ish) I logged on for a couple quick hops. The Rooks were down to only 3-5 fields, and most had logged. The numbers were @ like this
Knit 40
Bish 40
Rook 15
With the system you are propsing, I would have to wait 10-20 min (plug it into the spread sheet for exact #'s) to reup after my sorties. Let's see...would I wait 20min or log in frustration? Yup. i'
This is a very important point, in PAC prime time the numbers can be low , and the %'s could be very lopsided.
The numbers/horde are not a factor in this time zone - no fix is needed
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Originally posted by Mugzeee
On a negative note. The participants represent a very small portion of the subscribers.
I really wish more players would frequent the BBS to partake in such important issues.
HT should have posted it in the Voss mega-thread ;)
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
There is a big difference you are missing. See, when I signed up, there was no rule requiring me to sit through a waiting period between flights. But the Tempest was already perked. Meaning the agreement changes after the "contract was signed".
And no, it is NOT "that easy" to switch sides. And I don't WANT to switch sides, neither does my squad.
The solution to that is for HTC to do what Sony does and have you agree to the licensing agreement everytime you log on and thus to any changes they may have done.
That is annoying and HTC is unusual in that they do not have you do so.
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Remember not to tell anyone of our secret plan for everyone to log on and switch to Bish so they have to wait in the tower everytime we want to cut our grass or go out for dinner. :eek:
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Originally posted by hitech
If that is what you ment, then except my apologies.
HiTEch
Wuss... you shoulda kicked him a few more times. Ya gonna spoil them this way >=o|
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Originally posted by flyingaround
I'm getting the impression that this has already been decided upon, and the only thing your "feeling" out is the length of time the player has to wait.
Ewe, I hope this isn't true! My quick review of the over three hundred responses to this thread show many more nays than yeas to the idea. I'm sure this will be taken into account.
I think some of the other suggested ideas such as max airborne per base, etc. have more merit. I know Flakbait got off on the wrong foot, but the first two items on his list were right on the money from my standpoint.
Cya Up!
Dawg
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Since I'm not flying anymore my 2 cents aren't worth much (if they ever were) but I'd suggest limiting the plane set instead of limiting the ability to fly. Start limiting the top 4 or 5 planes by popularity and you'll force the side with the #'s to either fly an alternate plane or fly perks at a high "multiplier". I'd guess those pilots will be a little less aggressive (cept for the hog drivers maybe). Now you give guys a choice, fly the side they like...or fly the plane they like...works better if you have options instead of dicatating change log or sit...just my 1/2 cent:)
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I’ve always preferred encouraging something rather than discouraging something.
Right now, this “numbers imbalance” has generated a discussion on ways to “balance” the sides by giving people “timeouts” to persuade them to switch countries or delay their return to the fight if the won't switch.
It’s pretty clear that switching countries isn’t a desirable outcome for lots of folks, particularly those in a squad. Nor do people want to sit around doing nothing waiting for a timer to run down.
To me, these are “stick” approaches to solving the problem.
So, here’s a “carrot” proposal. Take it for what it’s worth, just an idea. Maybe it’ll cause someone else to think and come up with a better idea.
Let’s say the three countries are X, Y and Z so we don’t offend anyone. Let’s say on Sunday night, Country X has 200 players. Country Y with 135 players is getting absolutely hammered by Country X. As usual, Country Z’s players are fight both Country X and Y, not really bothering X much and just adding to already serious problem for Y.
Country Y needs some help. It just doesn’t have the numbers to withstand this attack from both sides.
First off, give Country Y free perk planes. Yep, free. Not free all nite, but use HT’s formula or something like it to trip the switch on the “Free Perk Planes in Y-land” lamp. It might go on and off several times during the night. This gives Y players a bit of help using aircraft technology and something to interest other folks in switching sides VOLUNTARILY.
Now, accepting the assumption that some players “will fly for perks” (because we know there are some that don’t care about either perks or score), program a “perk awards” feature that will encourage Country Z’s players to hit Country X and leave Country Y alone for a bit.
This can also be triggered by HT’s formula. When Country Z takes a Country X base, all Z players are immediately awarded 5 perks. Heck, make it 10 intially; it can always be fine tuned as actual MA experience dictates. Or, to reward those actually performing the capture, give all of the Z players in the same sector as the captured base the perks.
This feature should encourage Z players to hit Country X instead of already beleaguered Country Y. In effect, you have brought more players to Country Y by redirecting Z’s attacks onto Country X. An alliance as it were. Again, this wouldn’t have to last all night. It would be turned on and off by player number parameters or even total number of bases per team.
Anyway, the thrust here is ENCOURAGING players to negate the numbers imbalance without the need for a timeout or semi-forcing folks to switch sides.
It’s just an idea to get folks thinking. Lots of room for improvement, so go ahead and improve it.
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Originally posted by hitech
.....
Each person did not wish to give up their country to balance the numbers. And because they were not willing to change sides they didn't want the time limit. Well isn't this the basic problem we have right now? That people are not willing to change sides, they want some one else to have to change sides. Or they want to give somthing else to the underdog to apease them, but they are not willing to give up anything to solve the issue.
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit. ....
HiTech
I have to respectfully disagree here, HT. One MAJOR difference in the various proposals is clear -- whether you get to fly or not. Your proposal explicitly limits the whole purpose of AH, getting in the air. And I just think that's a bad idea.
After all, the outnumbered teams really just want an even chance to fly and fight. Why should that pain be shifted to the high numbers side? There have to be ways of rebalancing that don't limit anyone's ability to fly and have fun.
I would switch countries if my social unit -- my squad -- switched too. I would be surprised if a none of the larger squads would refuse a citizenship based request from HTC to cahnge countires for the good of the order.
I suggested the "spigot control" method because I know it works. In my practice, when I started to get busier than I wanted to be, I didnt limit current patients -- I preserved their access by limiting new patients. After a few months, normal attrition (like people moving away, etc) brought the numebrs under control painlessly.
In AH the same thing would happen. I'm torubled that the burden off your plan would be inordinately felt by newbies and less skilled players, who are more likely to quit the game entirely if frustrated. I'm not surprised to see that BBS members don't believe how short the average sortie for the average player is; HT, dont forget how we journeymen feel, adn dont give the vets another advantage.
I again strongly feel that efforts short of forcing people off the runway should be tried first.
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Originally posted by hitech
Flackbait, ignor mode went on when you opened with this line.
HiTech
Sigh...
One day you may figure it out HiTech...
Your skins thinned faster than the hair on my head, you used to actually listen a bit. Customers aren't always right (in fact they are more likely to be wrong) but they deserve to be treated with a minimum level of repsect regardless....
And in a case like this when the customer IS right you ought to consider his point of few...you did ask for it. An awful lot of people actually care about this game as much as you do. Why not cut them a break. The rocks they throw are aimed at the glass house you built...not at you personally.
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as most people have already said, the perk system doesnt work because the planes everyone flys arnt perked.......
perk everything from 30ENY (or more?) onwards and perks will start to matter..... And if a side has a large numbers advantage, there perk planes cost alot.......
only bad side i see to this is people will fly there perk rides and run alot more...........
What is the current perk cost for planes @x1 modifier???
Im thinking 5perks for 30-25 ENY, 10 perks for 24-15 ENY, 15 perks for 14-10 ENY, 20 perks for 9-0 ENY....
and with lets say a 0.6 perk modifier those 20 perk planes cost alot more........
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Originally posted by humble
Sigh...
One day you may figure it out HiTech...
Your skins thinned faster than the hair on my head, you used to actually listen a bit. Customers aren't always right (in fact they are more likely to be wrong) but they deserve to be treated with a minimum level of repsect regardless....
And in a case like this when the customer IS right you ought to consider his point of few...you did ask for it. An awful lot of people actually care about this game as much as you do. Why not cut them a break. The rocks they throw are aimed at the glass house you built...not at you personally.
humble, your a bit late......hitech and flaik have sorted this out.....
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Originally posted by Toad
I’ve always preferred encouraging something rather than discouraging something.
Right now, this “numbers imbalance” has generated a discussion on ways to “balance” the sides by giving people “timeouts” to persuade them to switch countries or delay their return to the fight if the won't switch.
It’s pretty clear that switching countries isn’t a desirable outcome for lots of folks, particularly those in a squad. Nor do people want to sit around doing nothing waiting for a timer to run down.
To me, these are “stick” approaches to solving the problem.
So, here’s a “carrot” proposal. Take it for what it’s worth, just an idea. Maybe it’ll cause someone else to think and come up with a better idea.
Let’s say the three countries are X, Y and Z so we don’t offend anyone. Let’s say on Sunday night, Country X has 200 players. Country Y with 135 players is getting absolutely hammered by Country X. As usual, Country Z’s players are fight both Country X and Y, not really bothering X much and just adding to already serious problem for Y.
Country Y needs some help. It just doesn’t have the numbers to withstand this attack from both sides.
First off, give Country Y free perk planes. Yep, free. Not free all nite, but use HT’s formula or something like it to trip the switch on the “Free Perk Planes in Y-land” lamp. It might go on and off several times during the night. This gives Y players a bit of help using aircraft technology and something to interest other folks in switching sides VOLUNTARILY.
Now, accepting the assumption that some players “will fly for perks” (because we know there are some that don’t care about either perks or score), program a “perk awards” feature that will encourage Country Z’s players to hit Country X and leave Country Y alone for a bit.
This can also be triggered by HT’s formula. When Country Z takes a Country X base, all Z players are immediately awarded 5 perks. Heck, make it 10 intially; it can always be fine tuned as actual MA experience dictates. Or, to reward those actually performing the capture, give all of the Z players in the same sector as the captured base the perks.
This feature should encourage Z players to hit Country X instead of already beleaguered Country Y. In effect, you have brought more players to Country Y by redirecting Z’s attacks onto Country X. An alliance as it were. Again, this wouldn’t have to last all night. It would be turned on and off by player number parameters or even total number of bases per team.
Anyway, the thrust here is ENCOURAGING players to negate the numbers imbalance without the need for a timeout or semi-forcing folks to switch sides.
It’s just an idea to get folks thinking. Lots of room for improvement, so go ahead and improve it.
you know what....i like this....
if there was incentives for the two small sides to gang up on the other side it might work...but since perks are next to useless with the current perk plane list, i doubt it will work.......
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Curious as to what HT and just about anyone else thinks about the alternitive ideas posted such as zone limits and/or logistical implications when upping in huge numbers
At this point its pretty obvious as to what a large percentage of those that frequent the boards and are posting think of the orginal question.
A thought might be to logicaly explore all alternatives to come up with the best possable solution that would be fair to all sides as opposed to only considering/debating one
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any person that cant wait 3 mins for up to 10 mins to 40 mins of flight time needs help
Spoken like an individual who can’t see past their own life. You might find this hard to believe, but there are members of this community who work, sometimes long hours. Then when they get home they have more work to do on the domestic end. Sometimes they only have 10 or 15 minutes to play. Waiting 3 to 10 minutes could be most of their flight time.
I know, I know, hard to imagine people having a full plate.
:rolleyes:
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The common denominator I am seeing is that players are actually against anything that will force them to switch sides. The "Getting to fly" thing is just a distraction.
As HT said...you could always change sides IF it is the Flying that means so much to us.
Guess we could expect that.
The Limited flight slots per base or zone would help to thin the hoard...and at the same time wouldn’t force players to switch to (Fly).
But i do believe that the subtle result would be a slow migration that would eventually even the sides again.
And if it didn’t... The problem is still solved. Because if the Flight Slots were full at a given base/zone...you’d have to operate from another base 50 or some 75 miles away and that lovely Hoard you sooo wanted to fly in would be WAY over there.
HT I salute you for stepping up to the plate and trying to work out this problem. It is a hard one to approach and you are doing a great job of being objective.
This deserves respect.
Thank You: Salute
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Raises hand>>> I'm one who doesnt always have or want to take a bunch of time to fly for hours and hours straight, and I do like to get online and up a quick sortie, one to several times a day .. so to spend the time to get online and enter game , just to see it say , well ya gunna have to wait 10 min while the numbers decrease in your country or what ever it would say, that would really get old fast...
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Originally posted by Virage
keep it simple.
restrict switching to the country with the most numbers first. See how the MA reacts.
It will nudge the numbers towards balance and my be enough in and of itself.
btw I am against the time restriction idea. you will have more players frustrated about that then are currently upset about numbers.
I can't agree more. This is the best idea I've read in this thread, by far.
culero
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Nope...I don't like the time restriction idea.
Just sweeten the pot to encourage side switching to balance the numbers. The "floaing perk value was a good idea".
But, then again, most people that I know don't fly for perks anyway.
Maybe limit late planes, but this will bring out the "it's my $15.00 and I'll fly what I want crowd".
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Originally posted by Mugzeee
What if… Each zone had an allotted number of flight slots. If the slots were currently full…then you would have to launch from another base say 50 to 75 miles away or wait till some one else moved to a different zone.
This could work well to disperse the Hoards. Because you would have to wait…or chose another base of operations…The new base of operations being far enough from the original base that your fuel would be rather low by the time you made it to the zone you were originally trying to Hoard…err fly in. :D
Could work to deter hoarding or gangbanging.
Aces High with its zone structure could maybe benefit from this setup.
BTW…this isn’t new. Nor is it my own idea. ;)
And the dolt Idea goes to............ Can you say kills any form of missions????
But I loved it. :)
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Originally posted by Zanth
I find most notable and encouraging that both hitech and pyro both acknowledge that there is a problem. This by itself is the good news, that they are considering doing something about it, even more so.
Ya know Zanth I have found everthing youve said to have a nut of sanity to it except for this.ARE YOU FUGGIN NUTS?This is a unilateral problem put up with by EVERY country at some time.The ratio shifts and it changes on a regular basis.To all of a sudden say we need to make a change is insane.Every side has had the advantage over months of time and every side has been outnumbered for months.It all evens out and I think NO course of action is what we need right now.To say that this is a fluke as some insinuate is just BS.Every side since Ive played this game has had overwhelming numbers.Ive been here for 3 years
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I dont see anything in the perk section fixing this.Some people believe it or not dont give a rats bellybutton about perks or score.They just want to fly a few and have a good time with the squad.If we limit the time they have to fly its going to have negitive responce.I STILL FARGIN say this has happened to alol sides and will also happen to all sides.It evens out eventualy.The only screwdriver in the works seems to be more than usual score potatos.Thats something that any change will be hard pressed to change.
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Originally posted by DrDea
I dont see anything in the perk section fixing this.
Agree 100%
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Concerning Squad Ops:
Maybe I missed this somewhere in the postings... but squad size limitations (or VOX limitiations) already forced us to split our members into two separate squads.
~81st~ Krewsaderz = 32 players
~81st~ Krewsaders = 25 players
for a total of 57 players...
If we upped on our squad night or Rook Joint Ops night (RJO) with even 1/2 of our total membership (29 players) we would probably exceed the % stated and be forced to log or switch sides... (sort of defeating the purpose of the community RJO night). Realize that RJO's happen maybe every 2 or 3 weeks for 1 night.
I believe one of the outcomes of imbalanced sides is that fuel can now only be porked down to 75% at a field (instead of the old 25%). What if barracks, FH's, BH's, etc... increased in "toughness" for outmanned sides ? What if ACK regenerated at fields and town faster for outmanned sides ?
I would do just about anything to keep our squadmates flying in the air together whenever we want - except change country. I suppose we could try logging off, too. Would I be prorated my monthly fee back on some basis for choosing not to switch country and simply logging ?
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It wont matter, the base of core rook flyers will still be up, they're better even fighting against both bish & knit double team. Rooks would loose a few cannon fodder dweebs, big deal. It wont solve the percieved problem. Actually it makes it easier for rooks to dominate when the numbers are against them, do it, don't do it, the situation wont change.
As it stands now (and as it did two years ago), bish or knits can't afford to fight each other ever or one of them gets reset by rooks. How do you change that?
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I do not think it would be a good idea. On sunday nights rooks have a lot of players, but thats because its squad night for most of the squads there. Also when rooks have their RJO (rook joint ops), we often up quickly for tactical advantage. Imposing a time limit on when you can up for another sortie would cause a great deal of problems and headaches between squads and their CO's. At least half of the squads are "born a rook, die a rook" squad. I am a member of one of them, the 81st. This would create such a headache for us that we would see people quit other then keep playing. Please keep it the way it is. It always evens out after the prime time.
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Originally posted by Boozer2
As it stands now (and as it did two years ago), bish or knits can't afford to fight each other ever or one of them gets reset by rooks. How do you change that?
I would be very interested in seeing the actual statistics of country resets over the past year or two. I seem to remember getting reset against more than once this past year (as a Rook).
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Originally posted by Hyrax81st
I would be very interested in seeing the actual statistics of country resets over the past year or two. I seem to remember getting reset against more than once this past year (as a Rook).
Now THATS a thought.Would bet ya over the past 2 years its a dead heat
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Originally posted by Hyrax81st
I would be very interested in seeing the actual statistics of country resets over the past year or two. I seem to remember getting reset against more than once this past year (as a Rook).
Sure, in a complete double team, spend time counting full darbar sectors on each front for the last 4 years.
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Originally posted by Boozer2
Sure, in a complete double team, spend time counting full darbar sectors on each front for the last 4 years.
I re-read this several times and still don't know what you are suggesting.
I was suggesting that server statistics probably exist that show how many times each country got reset over the past year or two. I think it would be interesting to see if Rooks really dominated with their numbers, or not.
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I can tell you first hand Rooks didnt till around 4 or 5 months ago.It was Bish before that and Im sure Kniggits are due.It really does cycle through
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Originally posted by DrDea
I can tell you first hand Rooks didnt till around 4 or 5 months ago.It was Bish before that and Im sure Kniggits are due.It really does cycle through
Ain't that the truth. I can't count the number of "WTG Knights!" or "WTG Bish!" or "WTG Rooks!" posts I've read in here. Some weeks the Rooks hold all the cards, other weeks it's the Knights or the Bishops. It may cycle by week, by month, sometimes even by the day depending on what's happening. But cycle it does.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/end_net.gif)
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HiTech;
Well, since you asked for opinions, I'll throw in my two cents worth...
I remember studies on computer and program response times, conducted some sixteen years ago. Peoples attention span lasted about as long as it took to reach for, and sip, a cup of coffee. If the program took longer than that to respond, they lost their train of thought, and they lost interest in the program. In light of those studies, I would think long and hard about having people click on fly, and then wait in the tower while they brew a pot of coffee.
Perk points have worked well in limiting the use of very high performance planes in the MA. As you have pointed out, they do not work well in balancing the numbers in the MA. I believe the reason is, perk points offer a carrot, without the subsequent stick for ignoring the carrot.
Start perking the 44/45 plane set when numbers reach a certain threshold. If the imbalance continues to grow, start perking the 42/43 plane set. Human nature being what it is, we will take the carrot if the alternative is always the stick.
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My feelings on this is that Aces High is a War Game and as such shouldn't be made "Fair" I've been playing Aces Hi off and on for 3 or 4 years and have seen all three teams have an advantage at one time or the other. Remember the Bish Hordes of just a little while ago. Currently I'm flying Knights, but if numbers are to great I'll fly for whichever team has least. Many more target opportunitys then.. Current Handle 3Moons
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Perking the top planes say 43 -> onwards when numbers are high may work. But only if current perk system is fixed.
e.g.
Plane Env Obj Cost
262 5 10 Y
LA7 5 10 N??????
P51D 6 10 N??????
F4U1C 7 5 Y
Spit14 7 10 Y
N1K 7 10 N
Temp 7 10 Y
F4U4 8 10 Y
Spit 9 8 10 N
No matter how or why you say the plane is perked - IT MAKES NO SENSE. LA7 is now on par with 262, Pony is 3rd 'best', yet we all pay perks for 'lower' performing aircraft. Yup as the numbers grow start perking (heavily) the 1943 onwards aircraft. But please sort out the current mess the perk system is in.
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Originally posted by Kev367th
Perking the top planes say 43 -> onwards when numbers are high may work. But only if current perk system is fixed.
e.g.
Plane Env Obj Cost
262 5 10 Y
LA7 5 10 N??????
P51D 6 10 N??????
F4U1C 7 5 Y
Spit14 7 10 Y
N1K 7 10 N
Temp 7 10 Y
F4U4 8 10 Y
Spit 9 8 10 N
No matter how or why you say the plane is perked - IT MAKES NO SENSE. LA7 is now on par with 262, Pony is 3rd 'best', yet we all pay perks for 'lower' performing aircraft. Yup as the numbers grow start perking (heavily) the 1943 onwards aircraft. But please sort out the current mess the perk system is in.
Spit9 is a 1942 plane ;) (not that I fly it!)
I don't think perking planes is the way to sway players to another country; they'll simply fly the next best plane and will still outnumber you whatever they fly.
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don't have time to read the whole thread, sorry.
make the wait time for a certain spawn point relative to its location on the front line; probably multiplies the amount of code needed, but probably the effectiveness also.
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Originally posted by Rolex
Remember not to tell anyone of our secret plan for everyone to log on and switch to Bish so they have to wait in the tower everytime we want to cut our grass or go out for dinner. :eek:
lol
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Originally posted by DrDea
I can tell you first hand Rooks didnt till around 4 or 5 months ago.It was Bish before that and Im sure Kniggits are due.It really does cycle through
Dea...im otw to work. But later i will find the thread containing the post i put up with the Numbers history.
I used the BBS Whineometer. Going back to the beginning and doing a search on anything to do with Hoard/Unbalance/outnumbered.
I was able to find a pretty accurate account of the numbers history.
At present the Rooks have held the advantage Twice as long and with nearly twice as many players than any other country in AH history.
Its just very lopsided these days. Many want to burry their head in the sand on this. But it is true. Salute
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Originally posted by DrDea
I can tell you first hand Rooks didnt till around 4 or 5 months ago.It was Bish before that and Im sure Kniggits are due.It really does cycle through
ive never, in almost 2 years of AHII seen teams so out of balance
whenever bish or knnit had numbers it was like 20 more ie 200:180:180.
right now, some nights rooks have 100 more at just isnt right......
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Originally posted by DrDea
Now THATS a thought.Would bet ya over the past 2 years its a dead heat
Problem is the numbers thing has nothing to do with resets. I couldn't care less who 'wins' the 'war'. It's about having to fight 5-10 vs 1 or 10-15 vs 2 ALL THE TIME for the last year. While it improves your SA, etc... it gets old after a while.
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Hitech,
I scanned through the thread and my thoughts are basically said by others. I think your idea will only work because you are on the assumption that there is no incentive NOT to change countries when there is. One of the most important of them is squad affiliation. What your idea will do is basically start a discussion amongst the players on one side and ... I can almost hear it...
A - "hey I can't up, some one get out!"
B - "I belong to a squad and I aint leaving! You get out!"
A - "Oh yeah??? yaddahh, yaddahh, yadahh"
so on and so forth...
something like this... Not a very healthy kinda conversation... Imposing a Waiting Time will become more of an incentive to log rather than change sides. Not very good for the game itself.
I gut feeling is that we need a more drastic solution than imposing a waiting time. We need to change the objective in the arena entirely, because this map reset thing or "winning" the reset is what is fueling this imbalance in the arena (as others have suggested). I think that this "winning" the reset in the early days of AH was not really an objective because of the low number of players. It just relatively did not happen that often. But now it does as we have a larger player base to begin with. With "winning" the reset, it gives an incentive to change to the country with larger numbers. To counter this incentive I think we need to change this objective.
I have suggested on a thread two years ago, on an alternative. (Suffering from the BigPac Burnout Syndrome (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53399)) I believe others have suggested as well.
That I guess sums up my thoughts on this matter...
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Originally posted by Redd
This is a very important point, in PAC prime time the numbers can be low , and the %'s could be very lopsided.
The numbers/horde are not a factor in this time zone - no fix is needed
Not sure if this is true. I know alot of knights wait until late night to play so they can go and vulch as there are few playes on and knights usually have numbers at this time. A 20 player advantage late-night represents a 50%+ overall adavantage. A 20 player advantage during prime-time US central only represents a 15% advantage. If anything numerical disparites are even more impactfull as numbers overall decline. At night everyone tends to play in the same area, if there's 30 on 15 that's worse than 150 on 100 by far and the potential for contantly lop-sided engagements is even greater.
Zazen
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way too many posts to read, so ...... if this has been said before, apologies.
HT you have caused the problem yourself, It's AHII that is suffering from numbers imbalance, if you re-instate the fuel porkage to 25 % I would suggest this would even things out for sides.
wipass
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Since the topic here is numbers and through association, gang banging, here's my suggestion for "something to try"...
Create a 4th team, or drop it to two teams. Can gang banging still occur? To some degree, perhaps, but I don't think this will ever completely go away no matter what happens.
The way the maps are setup, if 4 teams start off, each team basically has a quarter of the map with a central point here all 4 teams converge. Gang banging in general usually occurs on the back sides of a team's real estate. With 4 teams, one of those teams is not going to have a back side connection to one of the other teams. If 2 teams start ganging another, that 4th teams has no option but to attack one of the ganging teams, which in turn forces them to pay attention and thus breaks up the ganging of the original team.
It certainly could end up in a ganging situation depending on real estate layout, but that is true regardless of the number of teams in the game.
Personally I favor a 2 team setup. It would provide more even game play I think, but the potential is there for one side to be lop-sided. Implementation of the time delay as proposed by HT in this situation would be most effective in a 2 team situation I think.
Having 3 teams and trying to balance numbers via a dynamic time delay wouldn't really fix anyhting I don't think. It would be too difficult to tune the delay and difficult to figure out the correct balancing.
Anyway, just suggestions, and as mentioned, certainly something to try...and can always be changed if it doesn't work.
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Originally posted by wipass
way too many posts to read, so ...... if this has been said before, apologies.
HT you have caused the problem yourself, It's AHII that is suffering from numbers imbalance, if you re-instate the fuel porkage to 25 % I would suggest this would even things out for sides.
wipass
That makes no sense. This problem predates AH2. HTC has tried various things over the years to fix it. It remains a problem.
How you attached fuel porking, which always hurts the down country, to this is puzzling.
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Originally posted by Zazen13
I know alot of knights wait until late night to play so they can go and vulch as there are few playes on and knights usually have numbers at this time.
Hehehe.. Zazen this has to be the dumbest thing you've said yet. :lol
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We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
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It is ironic that the "rook horde" and the knights being pushed into a corner started this TFH. Last night I logged into the MA and saw the rooks down to only 3 or 4 bases, the dar and most strat was gone. Looks like natural selection may have run its course and obviated the need for much of this discussion to me.
Maybe that was just an anomaly though. Regardless I went to the CT and enjoyed a nice ~20v20 of reasonably well matched aircraft that lasted for a few hours.
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If you could, could you please post the formula and what planes would be affected by that said formula?
Thanks!
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Sounds good, but then again I only fly mid/early war (190A-5, P47D-11, 109F-4, F4F-4) planes anyway so it wont effect me most likely. :)
When the numbers are bad, FLY THE CT!!
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Great Idea Hitech!
Thanks for asking and listening to the community!
RHIN0
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:aok
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I don't remember who first suggested making it based on the ENY value, but I do like that idea. I wasn't very keen on just selecting a handful of planes for this, but using the ENY value gives it a nice scalability to fit the situation.
for the suggestion.
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I'm going to get a bunch of guys to defect with me to the Knights just so I can watch AKAK fly a Spit V.:D
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Hope it works HT. Do think about some of the ideas you've heard on gameplay though. There have been several suggestions that might improve overall gameplay.
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Originally posted by Pyro
I don't remember who first suggested making it based on the ENY value, but I do like that idea. I wasn't very keen on just selecting a handful of planes for this, but using the ENY value gives it a nice scalability to fit the situation. for the suggestion.
How hard would it be to make the ENY rating of a given aircraft fluctuate with the statistics? This wouldn't have to be calculated hourly or even daily. Allowing them to change from one tour to the next should suffice. If the ENY ratings were set via indisputable statistics rather than an arbitrary human hand it should be palatable to the overall community.
Is that possible, or more accurately, feasible?
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Interesting. I'm glad that you guys aren't going with the time out.
Now, when these aircraft get disabled (gone from the stable, not perked, correct?) the players who are dedicated P-51D drivers, for example, will have to switch sides to fly their P-51Ds.
I wonder if that will have any side effects such as perk point gathers seeking to fight the smaller opponent rather than the overpopulated opponent or statistical changes in aircraft usage due to the most desireable aircraft being unavailable for the most populous country.
Ideally it will simply get people to balance the sides and few aircraft will ever be disabled.
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You know the more I step back and think about the time delay the more I think it will have a detrimental effect. The reason why is not in and of itself but because when combined with other changes and variables I think it will make it very, very difficult to actually conduct successful offensive operations.
First off I think we have to recognize why a lot of people play this type of game and stick with for the long term. One of the integral parts of the game (and of AW, WBs, and WWIIonline) is players forming squadrons. They do this for several reasons including being social but also are more importantly to work together to form a group goal. This way the less skill player can fill accomplishment and that he is contributing when his squad pulls off a successful defense or offensive strike. Instead of just focusing on his own number of kills. He might end up flying goons, flying bombers, or covering his wing’s man back .. and even though he doesn’t get kills or is killed a lot still gets a sense of accomplishment in obtaining a goal or task that he and his buds set out to do.
You have to realize that except for the earlier stages of WWI you never had air combat for the sole purpose of just shooting down other planes. There was always a primary purpose to combat operations that went beyond this. In WWI it developed to deny the other side the ability to conduct scouting reconnaissance missions which laid the ground work for early practices of trying to establish air superiority. In WWII with the improvement of bombers and attack aircraft you had the development of combined arms. Where aircraft were used to support the land and sea arms and their objectives of obtaining or defending territory. Tactical bombing support this directly and need fighters to protect them. Strategic bombing was more indirect aimed at denying the means for the enemy to fight and also need fighter escorts. Even in the BoB the goal was to destroy the other air force so that an invasion could be launch without the worry of aerial attacks. In Midway the goal was not to destroy the defending airforce but destroy the ships that ferried them into battle and thus denying the US the means to deploy planes and ships to defend territory.
So truthfully there was almost never a time of just mindless furballing. Their was always a purpose behind furballing, setting up screens, JABO and strategic bombing which is why squadrons were formed in the first place. In AH (AW, WB) you have the same the same thing of people grouping together to accomplish a goal and then add in the social aspect which keeps the squad together for more than just one mission.
Pyro compared things to a FPS. This is not a first person shooter .. the goal there is usually to see how many times you can capture the flag or how many kills you can get in a set period of time. And this set period of time is usually not very long at all. Plus, even with the ones that use a spawn delay they tend to have a significant portion just log and go fine another server hosting the game. Lastly I would say that community for FPS are not as anywhere near as social or intricate as you have with the squads of games such as AH, AW, WB, and WWIIonline. How many FPS clans do you have that span 30-60 people or have been together in many case for 6 years. It’s a comparision of apples and oranges in my opinion where you can’t draw conclusions on how players will react and apply them to the other type/genre of game.
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Now there has been quite a few changes since AH2 came out all which taken all together and then ad in the time delay could very well make it extremely difficult to conduct offensive operations. At the very least it will promote even more concentration of flyers and will not promote spreading out flyers at all around the fronts. Remember some people are complaining not just about the spike in numbers happening on Sundays (other days seem to be evening out with not as drastic number imbalances … although their will always be a side with more and side with less) but also the fact of people flying in large groups.
[list=1]
- FH, BH, VH in AH2 has been changed so that they are just down for 15 minutes. This strengthens the defensive position of an attacked field since within 15 minutes they can be upping aircraft and GVs again.
What it promotes is for the attacking force to come in with even more pilots to knock down all the hangars at once and then leave a large force in place to suppress the field and defend against other fields sending in aircraft. It also promotes the use of bombers in a tactical role.
But overall it makes the field harder to capture and promotes more concentration of force against it.
- Fuel now can’t really be reduced past 75% (or I haven’t seen it happen in the MA). This allows the defending field to press its fighters out farther away from the defending field and setup screens to break incoming attacks. Net result is you start getting the attackers to contentrate more force again to break through these screens, hit the field and suppress them.
- Barracks when killed our down for 2 hours and it only takes 250 lbs to kill a barracks. It has become something of standard policy now to stop an offensive that you send in people to kill as many barracks as you can reach as far as you can reach. Resulting in many times barracks being down 3 or more sectors back from the front line.
Its very difficult to stop 1 player from getting in and killing barracks.
The counter to this is to goon and bring in supplies but remember it takes 8 goon drops to bring up a field. And at times it’s a long boring task to do so. And when done basically can come to naught as one enemy comes in and kills it again in a single pass undoing a significant effort of work. Couple this with time delay for deaths and you could really be discouraging the few who do fly goons to stop doing so. Who wants to get picked off in a goon running supplies when you have flown a long time and now have to wait afterwards.
If that lone person or person is from a country with reduced numbers they don’t even have to worry about their dying delaying them to fly again. Reinforcing this appropriate tactic in light of the current setting. Fortunately it will also discourage the use of dive bombing buffs and suicide JABOs by the two countries with greater numbers.
But overall it again this favors the defense strongly.
- Reduce cost perk planes for the side with lesser numbers. It is starting to become standard practice to use the fastest perk plane you can get to go goon hunting. Perfectly normally and expected to see 262s out hunting goons and buffs. But remember if the goon pilot is flying in from 3-5 sectors with troops because all other troops are dead they have spent a long time in the air. To die to a perk plane and then to be hit with a time delay would be more than frustrating, it would discourage people from gooning and we don’t exactly have tons of people volunteering but see what will happen when they start getting picked off and have to wait 1-10 minutes to fly again.
- Now throw in the time delay for flying based on your sides numbers. The situation already takes a lot more skill and organization and numbers to really take a base against opposition but now its going to take more since any of the attackers who die will have to wait to up again in effect staggering the attack which helps the defenders. But remember the attackers only have a 15 minute window to get base before hangars start coming up. With the base guaranteed to have 75% fuel the defenders basically can take advantage of lulls even better than currently to get spawn like mad and get their screens in place.
Now couple that with having to bring in goons from a long distance away (way back from the front lines) and it becomes even harder to conduct offensive operations.
[/list]
So take all these things together, if they stay all in place, and I think it will really tip the balance toward the defense to an extreme point. And what it will encourage is for those players on launching attacks to group up even more. Since it will take overwhelming force to knock down a field, suppress, and capture it since they will need to have enough involved to be able to maintain an effective group around their targets while others wait to reup. Plus, it will encourage more group flying since hate to say .. every US military manual said it .. its safer in numbers and safer and more effective to wing. When you are face with the negative of you dying and not being able to fly for a set period of time because of it you will start doing what the U.S. did .. developing tactics that focus on wing and group work to minimize this.
I think that putting the time delay in place with all the other things currently in place will drastically change the flavor of the game and have a very negative effect on the player base and their participation in the game. I would recommend reviewing all of these things together as a whole and considering possible results of putting a set of conditions in place (with others) that further increases the power of the defense.
Lastly, I still say its not addressing the cause of things. Most nights (by the tracking that I have started trying to do .. see previous post of screen shots) shows that most nights except for Sunday that the number spread is not very bad. Sunday night is very bad because that is just when quite a few Rooks have their squad night. Saturday is hard because wives, girlfriends want to go out as is the case on Friday. Sunday night is the night of staying in. Situation has worsen because several squads on other countries now avoid the night instead of trying to turn out more players to oppose Rooks that night. Although Rooks are as Dreidock pointed out starting to get sort of clumsy and not very effective because of their numbers on that night and have foster a Knits/Bishops vs the Rook attitude to offset them (natural reaction).
I am not 100% against the concept. Its just with all the other things in place I really think it is a bad move and will cause a lot more problems or start to impact the player base. So if it goes in place I would say please review the other factors that were put in place.
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Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
not sure if I like this idea... I would rather see a perk cost on those planes rather than disabling them entirely.
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Ahhh! Teaches me to spend my time writing a logical (or I hope logical) counterpoint and not reading that HTC is already thinking about a different idea instead.
Oh, well. :)
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Suggest increasing the perk incentives instead.
The imbalance is no real problem. The community has adequate remedies in place.
A greater problem posed by balancing is creating stagnant fronts. The game plays better when the terrain changes and there is a flow, when there is shifting momentum.
It is easy to disable troops and due to the size of towns captures take more effort.
Part of the reason the out-numbered team gets rolled back is because at times people could care less about territory. The only impact of the numbers imbalance relates to capturing territory. In almost all situations when the side with numbers begins to launch a sustained attack, the out-numbered side can see it coming and do something about it.
There are plenty of opportunities for the out-numbered to fly air to air or jump into a gv.
Step back for a second, pause, and think through what we are contemplating. The perk system was a sensible incentive and can be tweaked. Further management such as down time to force balancing is excessive.
rthus
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Originally posted by FDutchmn
not sure if I like this idea... I would rather see a perk cost on those planes rather than disabling them entirely.
I agree. It would allow people to ride out short term numbers issues but would get awfully expensive on the guys who refuse to change over longer periods of time. You might also have a perk/disabled threshold, the first step is a perk cost, then if it gets worst aircraft are disabled. Just two sliding scales instead of one. Basing it on ENY value is fine, some of them might need to be adjusted a bit.
Any way to make the player counts based on people actually playing, removing the "tower-squatters" who seem to log in and then go afk for long periods of time. I'm always amazed at the number of players I see like that, are they sitting there waiting for reset points or something?
-Soda
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Sorry, but I am confused.
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
Does that mean the side with more players will be flying more spitfires or more tempests?
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Simple question HT. Are you saying that you have definitely decided to procede with this?
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Yes Jackal1
HiTech
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Originally posted by hitech
Yes Jackal1
HiTech
Thank you.
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ahhh, the beauty of big team's Ch.2 clogged with, "hey you f**king newbie get the hell off our team!!".
the community building has begun. should be fun.
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Originally posted by HUN
I'm going to get a bunch of guys to defect with me to the Knights just so I can watch AKAK fly a Spit V.:D
If I remember correctly, the P-38 has a higher ENY than the Spit V. It will be the Spit V guys being forced to fly P-38s.
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ENY's will need serious review before used in this context. There are plenty of high ENY aircraft that are as good as, or some would argue better than, their low ENY counterparts. (P51B comes to mind). will be interesting to see in practice but, if the people who have no intention of switching sides are happy with the plan, I would not take that as a good sign.
off topic - I still wonder about applying the perk balancing formula also to scoring. Then you would have something that has a real day to day impact, on arena balance and also plane types. Seems like it would be a lot easier to do (1 plane getting a kill against bad odds should be worth more than a killl with 10 friends anyway, and nowhere is this yet taking into account.)
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Originally posted by Zanth
ENY's will need serious review before used in this context. There are plenty of high ENY aircraft that are as good as, or some would argue better than, their low ENY counterparts. (P51B comes to mind). will be interesting to see in practice but, if the people who have no intention of switching sides are happy with the plan, I would not take that as a good sign.
Exactly, I can already hear the whines if the ENY values are applied without the use of pure statistical evidence, and are instead applied due to perception or the level of b1tching about a particular plane type.
Those who fly 90+% of their sorties in one of the "big-5" will feel this impact more than ones who tend to fly a different aircraft each sortie or tend to gravitate toward the earlier planeset.
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Oh, I have a question. Just out of curiousity, if the plane you're currently in becomes disabled, is it unavailible to you regardless of whether you landed it or not?
My guess would be yes its unavalible regardless.
Just an unimportant sidebar, but it would be immersive to be able to keep upping the affected plane until you lose it, or select another. It would lend to the situation being a wartime supply shortage problem. Just a though, I dont care one way or the other.
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What's the point of playing as a team and building relationships with the people you fly with, squad mates or team mates if when you get shot down you are forced to join another team or wait.
If the wait is longer than 20 seconds or so I' d just fly till I was killed then go and play some other flight sim rather than wait around to be forced to change sides.
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Originally posted by Zanth
off topic - I still wonder about applying the perk balancing formula also to scoring. Then you would have something that has a real day to day impact, on arena balance and also plane types. Seems like it would be a lot easier to do (1 plane getting a kill against bad odds should be worth more than a killl with 10 friends anyway, and nowhere is this yet taking into account.)
Ya know thats not a bad Idea there.If your flying with the horde then your score should decline accordingly.Face it theres those that will switch to even things up regardless,but the real problem is the masses looking for easy points.Take that down somehow and it just might motivate the ones fixated on score to try to even things up.
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Good point Murdr. I would hope that is long as you land and rearm the plane .. respawn you still could use it. Sort of nice rewarding for surviving.
Also good point Zanth about reviewing the ENY values.
And last point is would it turn off the perk planes too? Or would those still only be based on purchasing? Meaning say one side is reduced down to early war plane set .. say P40s as the main fighter. Can a person still go and use perks to purchase say an F4U-1C?
Would be interesting mix of mostly early and midwar with a scattering of perk planes.
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As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
Sounds better than stoping people from flying. :aok
It will also have the benefit of forcing people to get good other rides.
LA5s, 190A8's and Jugs, would be my choice if I couldn't get a Pony-D or a LA7. The LA5 can be a pretty mean moscheen if flown well. :)
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Originally posted by Murdr
My guess would be yes its unavalible regardless.
I would think if you rearmed it would be fine.Puts a premium on a succesfull landing doesnt it:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by DrDea
I would think if you rearmed it would be fine.Puts a premium on a succesfull landing doesnt it:rolleyes:
Yea, as long as you dont end flight, you'd be fine. Only thing is you wouldnt know you have to do that to keep your ride unless someone mentions the situation on the radio.
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Originally posted by hitech
Yes Jackal1
HiTech
Hitech,
Please go with incremental perk point cost for planes of below ENY threshold level (according to the number of players online), instead of disabling them. Disabling is not in line with the concept of the MA where you can fly any plane you want. Perk point cost is to discourage flying certain planes, but will not prohibit its flight.
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Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
I like the idea !!!
More than the Time limit.
And the nice side effect will be that we will see more usage of the hangar queens. :)
Anyway, if I can ask, why disabling and not assigning a proportional and even severe perk cost?
******
Pyro, Hitech, I want to compliment you for your attitude for the playerbase.
Propose a change, listen the answers, embrace the proposal of the players, this is what make HTC special.
!
Now, tell us what the bomber and the tank are.
And start working on the cant1007 and the sm79 and the g55, and the re2002 and re2005.... oh I forgot to mention the CR42, the G50 and the C200.
Yes Camo, ok.... and the Buffalo.
:D
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I would rather see perking and gradual increase of price than disabling. There would have to be a confirm/cancel popup dialog notifying the player that they are taking a perk plane so that people who just click the runway to launch again are aware. It would also have the effect of stopping the accidental Spitfire Mk XIV as base defender launches.
If perking them didn't have the effect HiTech is looking for, then HTC could move on to the heavier handed disabling.
I expect that Tiffies, Doras and Spit Vs will be the first choice for players to jump to. P-51Bs, Bf109G-10s and Seafires would be the next choices I think.
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Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
:aok
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Originally posted by SC-Sp00k
I accept long periods of flying time to get to a target of my choice, where im twiddling my thumbs in the air.
I cant accept long periods of sitting in a tower if im understanding this correctly just to fly a plane.
I agree. if im gonna have to wait to fly ill find another game more interesting
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Originally posted by Murdr
Oh, I have a question. Just out of curiousity, if the plane you're currently in becomes disabled, is it unavailible to you regardless of whether you landed it or not?
My guess would be yes its unavalible regardless.
Just an unimportant sidebar, but it would be immersive to be able to keep upping the affected plane until you lose it, or select another. It would lend to the situation being a wartime supply shortage problem. Just a though, I dont care one way or the other.
There you are cruising at 22k in your 38 of death...all of a sudden you go...WOW...invisable canopy, how'd I do that?...then you realize your tumbling down since your now "banned" plane evaporated around you:D
Actually I think it's the best possible solution to an unsolvable equation...the hard core "side A" guys will step down...P51D to B, Spit IX to Spit 5, La-7 to La-5 etc. The real men in the Jugs, tiffies & 38's won't ever notice the difference and the nikki dweebs will migrate with the plane....
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Originally posted by DipStick
Problem is the numbers thing has nothing to do with resets. I couldn't care less who 'wins' the 'war'. It's about having to fight 5-10 vs 1 or 10-15 vs 2 ALL THE TIME for the last year. While it improves your SA, etc... it gets old after a while.
Thank You.... DiP...Stick!!!
My thoughts exactly.
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Originally posted by Kev367th
Perking the top planes say 43 -> onwards when numbers are high may work. But only if current perk system is fixed.
e.g.
Plane Env Obj Cost
262 5 10 Y
LA7 5 10 N??????
P51D 6 10 N??????
F4U1C 7 5 Y
Spit14 7 10 Y
N1K 7 10 N
Temp 7 10 Y
F4U4 8 10 Y
Spit 9 8 10 N
No matter how or why you say the plane is perked - IT MAKES NO SENSE. LA7 is now on par with 262, Pony is 3rd 'best', yet we all pay perks for 'lower' performing aircraft. Yup as the numbers grow start perking (heavily) the 1943 onwards aircraft. But please sort out the current mess the perk system is in.
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Spit9 is a 1942 plane (not that I fly it!)
I don't think perking planes is the way to sway players to another country; they'll simply fly the next best plane and will still outnumber you whatever they fly.
__________________
NEXX - sorry, list wasn't supposed to be specifically 1943 planes onwards. It was meant to show the crazy way that planes are perked. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to it. I heard that some are perked to prevent over usage others because of their performance. IMO the LA7 and P51 fit both these categories, if people started paying for them when they had high #s although not fixing the numbers it may force them into earlier planes.
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Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
Sounds worth trying HT.
Hey if it doesnt pan out...it can always be tweeked or changed to another system. Thanks for bringing it up for discussion. And for trying to keep things fun and as fair as possible.
It is very much appreciated.
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Originally posted by Kev367th
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Originally posted by Kev367th
Perking the top planes say 43 -> onwards when numbers are high may work. But only if current perk system is fixed.
e.g.
Plane Env Obj Cost
262 5 10 Y
LA7 5 10 N??????
P51D 6 10 N??????
F4U1C 7 5 Y
Spit14 7 10 Y
N1K 7 10 N
Temp 7 10 Y
F4U4 8 10 Y
Spit 9 8 10 N
No matter how or why you say the plane is perked - IT MAKES NO SENSE. LA7 is now on par with 262, Pony is 3rd 'best', yet we all pay perks for 'lower' performing aircraft. Yup as the numbers grow start perking (heavily) the 1943 onwards aircraft. But please sort out the current mess the perk system is in.
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Spit9 is a 1942 plane (not that I fly it!)
I don't think perking planes is the way to sway players to another country; they'll simply fly the next best plane and will still outnumber you whatever they fly.
__________________
NEXX - sorry, list wasn't supposed to be specifically 1943 planes onwards. It was meant to show the crazy way that planes are perked. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to it. I heard that some are perked to prevent over usage others because of their performance. IMO the LA7 and P51 fit both these categories, if people started paying for them when they had high #s although not fixing the numbers it may force them into earlier planes.
Kev ... the planes won't be perked ... they just won't be available in the hanger.
So if one side enjoys a huge numbers advantage, they will more than likely lose the use of :
La-7
P-51
N1K
Spit IX
so and so fourth - dending upon how unbalanced the area is
They will be forced into the early war (higher ENY) planes.
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when is this taking effect? HTC
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Originally posted by simshell
when is this taking effect? HTC
2 weeks ... sorry ... I couldn't resist the urge ... :D
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I'm not sure if this has been up already, because i havent read all the replies, but what about this....
say the MA is like the following:-
Rooks 200 players
Knits 150 players
Bish 100 players
Rooks could have the top 4 aircraft, or top ENY valued planes (say nik, 51D, spit, La7 for arguments sake) perked to 4 perks each + perk planes at an increased cost; like it is currently.
Knits could have the above aircraft perked to 2 perks each.
Bish have top 4 aircraft for free, and reduced perk plane cost.
While the perk value will not stop people from flying due to cost of aircraft, its more of an incentive to even the numbers and it would not cause such a massive increase on the whine-o-meter like limiting people from upping would do.
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I like this idea
Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.
As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.
HiTech
This the one that sparked it?
Originally posted by Delirium
I think its a BAD idea, I'm willing to bet it will cost you customers. It will be an even worse implementation if you do not allow people to change countries on a whim.
Why not use the current ruleset to encourage balanced teams? For example, multiplying the perk bonus/cost, or even not allowing the side with overwealming numbers to fly lower ENY aircraft.
I had always hoped the squads themselves on each side would be responsible and mature enough to prevent this type of BS equalizer. Its too bad we need something from HTC to do something we should have been doing all along; treat each other with respect.
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Originally posted by Kaz
This the one that sparked it?
Kweassa and I were also fielding ENY based approaches, but Delirium was the one to say disable them. In game terms, I think he got the kill and some others got assists :)
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No to denial of time to your chosen country. Sorry, but I cannot be objective about this.
I have only ever flown for Rooks, and have no wish to be a part of any other country, ever. It's so bad I don't care for scenarios or two country CT because theres a fair chance of not being Rook.
I have only limited time for AH, and would be deeply unhappy if part of that time was crippled in this manner.
There are insufficient derivatives of F words that can begin to express how truly FUBAR this idea is.
Achttag
<>
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Originally posted by Murdr
Kweassa and I were also fielding ENY based approaches, but Delirium was the one to say disable them. In game terms, I think he got the kill and some others got assists :)
Therefore is should now, and forever be referenced as ...
The "Delirium Factor" ... hey Del ... your FAMOUS !!! :D
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Originally posted by Achttag
No to denial of time to your chosen country. Sorry, but I cannot be objective about this.
I have only ever flown for Rooks, and have no wish to be a part of any other country, ever. It's so bad I don't care for scenarios or two country CT because theres a fair chance of not being Rook.
I have only limited time for AH, and would be deeply unhappy if part of that time was crippled in this manner.
There are insufficient derivatives of F words that can begin to express how truly FUBAR this idea is.
Achttag
<>
Not to worry Achttag ... you'll just be flyin Spit I's all the time ... ;)
I guess you missed what the real resolution will be ... it ain't "time out".
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Originally posted by SlapShot
Not to worry Achttag ... you'll just be flyin Spit I's all the time ... ;)
Yeeoowwcchh! :p
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Originally posted by SlapShot
Therefore is should now, and forever be referenced as ...
The "Delirium Factor" ... hey Del ... your FAMOUS !!! :D
LOL SlapShot, make that inFAMOUS when people cant select their favorite ride. Do you realize what you just did to poor Del? ;) ROFL
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Originally posted by SlapShot
Not to worry Achttag ... you'll just be flyin Spit I's all the time ...
I could live with that.
At least one must have been captured...where's my history book...hmm
En 830used by 131 RAF Sqn which was missing over France in August 1943. Captured by Germans in good condition was tested in Rechlin. Later (when ?) was sent to Daimler Benz factory in Echterdingen near Stuttgart. Original engine was removed and DB 605 installed.
I especially like the last bit :)
Skin commission anyone?
Achttag
<>
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Achttag,
As someone who likes German aircraft you'll be least affected by HTC's solution.
Well, I guess an Italian fan would be even less affected. You stand to lose the Fw190D-9 and Bf109G-10 on occasion.
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Hello Karnak
Nice to hear from you. Take care
Achttag
<>
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Of course, no time to read all the posts. IMO, the original idea is not good at all. Usually, the country with more players is gangbanged by the other two, or 2 countries gangbanging the one with less players. In terms of balance, the country between the one with most players and the one with less players has an advantage.
I would bet for an attrition system to give the less populated teams a real chance to win the war even losing terrain.
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.S Delirium
:aok
Originally posted by Murdr
Kweassa and I were also fielding ENY based approaches, but Delirium was the one to say disable them. In game terms, I think he got the kill and some others got assists :)
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Chill dude. You'll be able to fly Rook, just maybe not your favorite ride is all. HT is going with a modified/different version of the idea.
Originally posted by Achttag
No to denial of time to your chosen country. Sorry, but I cannot be objective about this.
I have only ever flown for Rooks, and have no wish to be a part of any other country, ever. It's so bad I don't care for scenarios or two country CT because theres a fair chance of not being Rook.
I have only limited time for AH, and would be deeply unhappy if part of that time was crippled in this manner.
There are insufficient derivatives of F words that can begin to express how truly FUBAR this idea is.
Achttag
<>
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Ouch, quoted again. OK, my apologies for flying off the handle.
HT, no offence intended.
Achttag
<>
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HT,
I'm against limiting a player's time or the planes he/she can choose.
I've seen the perk plane system work as it should, the result being hordes of 262's and Tempests effectively blunting an assault from the high numbered country. Perhaps a little more tweaking here that makes perk rides even cheaper for the outnumbered country would fix the problem.
One other possible solution:
Have the numbers affect scoring, not just perk points. The outnumbered side would get higher score points. This might have the effect of pulling the score hounds to the lowest numbered country each time they logon. Nothing like having the "top" 100 players constantly switching to the outnumbered country so they get that extra score advantage to help balance the arena.
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Originally posted by MOSQ
(editted to not confuse point) z
One other possible solution:
Have the numbers affect scoring, not just perk points. The outnumbered side would get higher score points. This might have the effect of pulling the score hounds to the lowest numbered country each time they logon. Nothing like having the "top" 100 players constantly switching to the outnumbered country so they get that extra score advantage to help balance the arena.
This is a good idea I think
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MOSQ and Kanth ...
Ya need to go back a page or two.
It has been decided !!!
Planes will become UNAVILABLE (in ENY order - lowest first) as the number imbalance grows.
Case closed.
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Case closed -- but I think this is a GREAT idea. People get to fly, teh lethality of the swarm country is reduced, and there's pressure applied to get numbers to switch. JSO can still happen -- but will require even more strategic planning to maximize impact. With time, numbers equalize as non-random pressures are applied. Solution works moment by moment to allow pressures to apply both to long and short term trends.
GREAT solution, Delerium et al. -- and salute to HiTech for listening, being creative, and being open to new ideas.
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I Dont see how it (the Eny thing) will change anything other then the planes being flown. Unless I have somehow read it wrong.
And the way Im am reading it now is super planes like the PonyD will be disabled forcing the larger numbers to fly lesser planes. Is that the idea?
And 200+ of anything Even P40's is still a horde.
But it will get now seldom used planes flying more.
Assuming I am reading it correctly with all due respect I dont think its gonna make a difference and am predicting that now.
Though I honestly hope I am proved wrong
Time will tell
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
I Dont see how it (the Eny thing) will change anything other then the planes being flown. Unless I have somehow read it wrong.
And the way Im am reading it now is super planes like the PonyD will be disabled forcing the larger numbers to fly lesser planes. Is that the idea?
And 200+ of anything Even P40's is still a horde.
But it will get now seldom used planes flying more.
Assuming I am reading it correctly with all due respect I dont think its gonna make a difference and am predicting that now.
Though I honestly hope I am proved wrong
Time will tell
I tend to agree dred.
But anything is better than nothing.
And it will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I think HTC's desired effect is to get players to switch sides and even the numbers.
I am axious to see the results of this idea.
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Our squad flys ponys because thats what the real 339'th flew. So now no matter what country we choose we will have our ride disabled at times. You probably have disabled our squad nights with this idea. And you certainly have stopped our squad from flying missions in the RJO's. First it was getting rid of night, then limiting large maps. After that it was not allowing fuel to be reduced. I see a trend here that is forcing people to fly a certain style and discourge other styles. Sorry Hitec, it's your game but it's my money and I'm not spending it to fly in a perpetual furball.
To the guys I've flown with and against:
Your conversation, antics and friendship have been a source of real pleasure for me. I wish you all well.
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to reset an arena especially a big map you need imbalance.
you will never solve local numbers imbalance anyway
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Originally posted by ply
Our squad flys ponys because thats what the real 339'th flew. So now no matter what country we choose we will have our ride disabled at times. You probably have disabled our squad nights with this idea. And you certainly have stopped our squad from flying missions in the RJO's. First it was getting rid of night, then limiting large maps. After that it was not allowing fuel to be reduced. I see a trend here that is forcing people to fly a certain style and discourge other styles. Sorry Hitec, it's your game but it's my money and I'm not spending it to fly in a perpetual furball.
To the guys I've flown with and against:
Your conversation, antics and friendship have been a source of real pleasure for me. I wish you all well.
Would take a big numbers disadvantage for the 51B to not be available.
Not sure an historical squadron is right for you , think you need an hysterical squadron after this hissy fit ;)
The "Delerium Factor" claims it's first victim
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Bad Idea.
These things always balance out, and the number politics are totally, and always have been part of the game. Personally, I enjoy the underdog role, and it inevitably rotates from side to side.
Please backburner this, right behind the display errors.
Mullah :)
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Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.
Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.
The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.
I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.
I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.
And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.
HiTech
I see your point, but as it is now people can care little for perk points. They need a reason to care. With a fully scaleable perk system you might get more balance without haveing to greatly limit other areas to achive this balance.
I mean.... as the multiplyer works now it just effects your points earned and cost of planes. It could effect the price of planes themselves, into the negative. If your country has too many players and your perk multipler is like 0.70 maybe the p51d/la7 and similar eny planes should cost a couple of perks, increaseing in price as the multiplyer decreases. Likewise if a country has a 1.80 multiplyer a plane like the f4u-ic might be free. As the multiplyer increase maybe a plane like the 152 becomes free.
The point is....as the multiplyer decreases for a country with overwhelming numbers more and more planes could cost more and more perks. Forceing players to use perks or fly high ENY planes. This would increase the effect of the perk system by makeing perks more useful, and needed.
Something like this may not be a fix alone, but could allow you to take less extreme measures elsewhere. I always felt the uses of the perk system haven't been fully explored. Allowing the tradeing of perks, for instance, would have the double effect of being able to gamble with perks too :D Anyway, I think if you make the perk system mean more, it might have more of an effect.
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Off topic but putting up 100 or more perks in a 4 or 5 way FFA winner take all in the DA would be sweet.That dweeb talking smack to ya?Clean em out.In other words Get 'er done :)
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I'm all for anything that promotes and encourages a more even gaming environment.
Anton
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Originally posted by Mugzeee
I tend to agree dred.
But anything is better than nothing.
And it will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I think HTC's desired effect is to get players to switch sides and even the numbers.
I am axious to see the results of this idea.
One of the things I am envisioning is a situation where we end up having massive mossie hordes comming in.
LOL anyone feel like dealing with 200 mossies?
their Eny value is something like 45 which means its highly unlikely to ever be unavailable.
what I think is gonna happen is few peole will actually change sides.
What most will do is simply adapt and take advantage of what they have. The mossie is a great example of such an adaptation. Its fast. has really nasty guns. Carries a decent load of ord and with a large numbers advantage can also be unstoppable.
but then again a large numbers advantage with just about any plane but goons would be unstoppable.
And I think even numbers advantage could be dealt with if they just didnt show up all at the same place at the same time which is why I was pushing for some sort of zone/feild limits with logistic implications that would be an accurate representation of real life.
This way nobody would ever have to change countries if they didnt want (which I can fully understand)
and nobody would ever be without their favorite ride.
they might have to fly it form a different base perhaps. Or without ord or reduced fuel. Or be forced to fight in a different area.But it would still be available
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Redd, Just who are you to be telling us what we should or want to fly. If I want to log on and fly a Pony I shouldnt have to worry about hurting your poor widdow feewings. I for one have no interest in flying anything but a D model on squad night, I pay my money to do so. Just as you pay the same amount to fly whatever, whenever and however you want.
As far as the outnumbered thing goes, GROW UP! Rooks were outnumbered for most of the night tonight and we still managed to grind you to a standstill and eventally push back. Learn to organize and cooperate. I hear all the time on country channel from converts how disorganized other teams are. A few are even suprised at the amount of check 6s they get.
After this what is your next whine gonna be? Strats-already been done waaaaaa. Alt monkeys-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to small-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to big-already been done waaaaaaaa. gunnery to hard-already been done waaaaaaaaaaaa.:rolleyes:
My point is there is always going to be some snivling snotrags that feel the need to go crying to mommy instead of looking at the problem and taking it upon themselves to fix it. Maybe some recruiting would be in order. Maybe organize a little bit. Maybe try something other than cry. For a bunch of folks that sit and play a game based on war, I sure see a lot of whining and crybabying!!
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The Idea for time outs in "country" with excessive numbers is great. How about this though, You impose the time out on anything less than a successful landing. The pilots that survive get a reward for their good SA, and the ones that get shot down, ditch or captured get the penalty. It would also be cool if Shot down gets the greatest penalty, Captured gets 2/3 of the Shot down penalty and Ditched gets 1/3 of the penalty.
It would re-inforce the concept of survive and SA.
Loyalty to country is not wrong or misplaced. Those who have no loyalty to anything are to be mistrusted. Those same people often have no loyalty even unto themselves. Take the case of the man who wears both belt and suspenders to hold his pants up.
:cool:
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Seems like I am late to join the discussion since the decisions have already been made :) ... here are a few suggestions anyways.
Instead of prohibiting planes completely...
-Combine the ENY prohibiton with WAIT time:
If you want a better plane, wait for it.. or take off in a lesser plane right away.
or
-Combine WAIT time with base LOCATION:
If one wants to take off close to front, make him wait but allow him take off from more distant bases right away.
or
-Combine WAIT time, ENY and LOCATION:
Wait for better plane close to the front or go further back to fly it right away.
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I like the solution. It doesn't deny anyone access and gives the overwhelmed side fair opportunity to fight back. They can still be a horde, just in Hurri's and 205's.
to HiTech and HTC for listening to the customers. Now I just hope we were right.;)
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Originally posted by jdpete75
Redd, Just who are you to be telling us what we should or want to fly. If I want to log on and fly a Pony I shouldnt have to worry about hurting your poor widdow feewings. I for one have no interest in flying anything but a D model on squad night, I pay my money to do so. Just as you pay the same amount to fly whatever, whenever and however you want.
As far as the outnumbered thing goes, GROW UP! Rooks were outnumbered for most of the night tonight and we still managed to grind you to a standstill and eventally push back. Learn to organize and cooperate. I hear all the time on country channel from converts how disorganized other teams are. A few are even suprised at the amount of check 6s they get.
After this what is your next whine gonna be? Strats-already been done waaaaaa. Alt monkeys-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to small-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to big-already been done waaaaaaaa. gunnery to hard-already been done waaaaaaaaaaaa.:rolleyes:
My point is there is always going to be some snivling snotrags that feel the need to go crying to mommy instead of looking at the problem and taking it upon themselves to fix it. Maybe some ,recruiting would be in order. Maybe organize a little bit. Maybe try something other than cry. For a bunch of folks that sit and play a game based on war, I sure see a lot of whining and crybabying!!
LOL find one post on this BBS where I have whined or cried about numbers ever ! I actually don't care how many are on each team , doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't care about the war , the resets , the strat either. In fact - find a post on the BBS where I have whined about anything. The only wine I'm into comes in a glass.
I was merely stunned by a guy who said he is cancelling his account because every now and then he might have to fly a B model instead of a D model pony - AND it hasn't even happened yet ! It just might happen one day . Read it again - he is saying goodbye - cancelling his account , his squad has been decimated by this harsh decision by HTC - omg .
Now if that's not throwing an unnecessary hissy fit I don't know what is. Sometimes when I see something that funny I just have to post .
Have a nice day :)
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Originally posted by jdpete75
My point is there is always going to be some snivling snotrags that feel the need to go crying to mommy instead of looking at the problem and taking it upon themselves to fix it. Maybe some recruiting would be in order. Maybe organize a little bit. Maybe try something other than cry. For a bunch of folks that sit and play a game based on war, I sure see a lot of whining and crybabying!!
and
P.S. I just swapped from Rooks to Knights this tour because I prefer to fight with less numbers than too many numbers.
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Originally posted by jdpete75
Redd, Just who are you to be telling us what we should or want to fly. If I want to log on and fly a Pony I shouldnt have to worry about hurting your poor widdow feewings. I for one have no interest in flying anything but a D model on squad night, I pay my money to do so. Just as you pay the same amount to fly whatever, whenever and however you want.
As far as the outnumbered thing goes, GROW UP! Rooks were outnumbered for most of the night tonight and we still managed to grind you to a standstill and eventally push back. Learn to organize and cooperate. I hear all the time on country channel from converts how disorganized other teams are. A few are even suprised at the amount of check 6s they get.
After this what is your next whine gonna be? Strats-already been done waaaaaa. Alt monkeys-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to small-already been done waaaaaaaa. Maps to big-already been done waaaaaaaa. gunnery to hard-already been done waaaaaaaaaaaa.:rolleyes:
My point is there is always going to be some snivling snotrags that feel the need to go crying to mommy instead of looking at the problem and taking it upon themselves to fix it. Maybe some recruiting would be in order. Maybe organize a little bit. Maybe try something other than cry. For a bunch of folks that sit and play a game based on war, I sure see a lot of whining and crybabying!!
this is the guy that's complaining he has to switch countries to find his plane?
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And then the time outs could be extended for the guys with the lowest rankings to even things up more. And a 2 kill cap could be put on country with most people, 2 kills and you have to land.
And there could be draft choices and ??? dang confused it again with NFL parity.
Sorry about that.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
One of the things I am envisioning is a situation where we end up having massive mossie hordes comming in.
LOL anyone feel like dealing with 200 mossies?
their Eny value is something like 45
ENY is 40
:)
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If this thread is still being read then I have a suggestion.
Instead of disabling the planes all together how about inverting their eny value to equal a perk value?
For example if the la7 eny is 3 and one side has crossed the imbalance threshold la7s now cost 3.
Or something similar?
I cringe at the idea of disallowing folks to enjoy their choice ride. But most these planes have a close relative so I don’t see folks being cut off completely.
P51D – P51B
La7 - La5FN
Spit IX – Spit V etc…
I do think that something should be done in regards to the side number imbalance. This has been whined about in the past and it usually ended up in players/squads eventually switching sides.
Any my 2 cents...
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Actually this solution may not do anything at all to affect side balance. Maybe people will just decide to settle for some other ride if the low ENY planes are disabled. For example, wouldn't a Rook horde on RJO nights will be nearly as effective if equipped with LA5s and heavy F6Fs, P47s, P38s, Mossies, etc?
I think we might find the desire to 'crush' the opposition with a horde and reset the map is more powerful than the desire to fly certain plane types. If that is the case the horde steamroller will just continue on, with perhaps slightly less effective planes than before.
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I like it, it should help with numbers IMO. The thing is, most will not switch and just fly a plane with higher eny, but I think some will, and thats the point isn't it? I mean, we wouldn't want everyone switching all the time would we? Just a few to even the sides up a bit.
Me, I'd have no problem going with a 109G2 or F4 instead of a G10. Many 190 pilots prefer the A5, and the F4U-1 is a fun ride and possibly more fun that the F4U-1D. B pony has been mentioned as possibly better than the D, LA5 is a formidable aircraft. I dont see the problem with it. The plane specific squads may have a gripe, but it seems a bit selfish (and yes my statement is a bit selfish :p )
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If it is not just a bit painful to the "offenders", any plan would not work. None of us have seen the actual implementation, but if it gets too sugar coated or watered down, not much will change. Will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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Originally posted by RDSaustinTX
Bad Idea.
These things always balance out, and the number politics are totally, and always have been part of the game. Personally, I enjoy the underdog role, and it inevitably rotates from side to side.
Please backburner this, right behind the display errors.
Mullah :)
Really.
I really feel strongly that if the powers that be insist this is a "problem" (I think the controversy about numbers imbalance is mostly whiners doing what whiners do, but that's not what I wanna discuss here) that its wisest to first try the least intrusive "solutions" possible.
The perk grading was a good idea. It didn't restrict anyone from anything, just gave incentives. Hell, its what caused me to become a Rook - when I started flying here, Rooks were the smallest consistently and I wanted to try perk rides cheaper. Maybe just increasing this "bonus" for the underdog country might cause it to work better?
Another idea that's been suggested is to close the largest country to side-switchers. Now, that's restrictive, but not to gameplay (you can still fly what you want). If new players were included, I believe that over time this would have a balancing effect.
I think either or both, or a combination of these with some other non-or-less intrusive idea should be tried FIRST to see if it works before restricting people from flying, or flying what they want.
culero
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Originally posted by Citabria
to reset an arena especially a big map you need imbalance.
you will never solve local numbers imbalance anyway
Resets are not the issue.
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I dunno, I'm thinking it might be fun to be on the low number side with this set up. I really enjoyed the early mid war matchups provided by the rolling planeset in that OTHER sim. This way I may get more of em. (I've been flying higher ENY lately).
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
I Dont see how it (the Eny thing) will change anything other then the planes being flown. Unless I have somehow read it wrong.
And the way Im am reading it now is super planes like the PonyD will be disabled forcing the larger numbers to fly lesser planes. Is that the idea?
And 200+ of anything Even P40's is still a horde.
But it will get now seldom used planes flying more.
Assuming I am reading it correctly with all due respect I dont think its gonna make a difference and am predicting that now.
Though I honestly hope I am proved wrong
Time will tell
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Only problem there is affecting scoring won't work with the players like me that don't care diddly bout score. No incentive at all.
Originally posted by MOSQ
HT,
One other possible solution:
Have the numbers affect scoring, not just perk points. The outnumbered side would get higher score points. This might have the effect of pulling the score hounds to the lowest numbered country each time they logon. Nothing like having the "top" 100 players constantly switching to the outnumbered country so they get that extra score advantage to help balance the arena.
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Not to be disloyal, but the belt and suspenders thing kinda lost me.
I like this idea too though. :aok
Originally posted by Stegahorse
The Idea for time outs in "country" with excessive numbers is great. How about this though, You impose the time out on anything less than a successful landing. The pilots that survive get a reward for their good SA, and the ones that get shot down, ditch or captured get the penalty. It would also be cool if Shot down gets the greatest penalty, Captured gets 2/3 of the Shot down penalty and Ditched gets 1/3 of the penalty.
It would re-inforce the concept of survive and SA.
Loyalty to country is not wrong or misplaced. Those who have no loyalty to anything are to be mistrusted. Those same people often have no loyalty even unto themselves. Take the case of the man who wears both belt and suspenders to hold his pants up.
:cool:
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Only problem with above idea is that kills people trying to up at a nearly capped field to defend it.
That would upset the vultchers.
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With this solution in place, I find a renewed interest in playing AH.
If I understand it right, if this works, we'll see more balanced numbers and greater plane diversification.
Sounds like a shot in the arm for AH!
WTG:aok
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I still think you should have to wait if you get shot down.....I don't care about numbers....
Shotdown and killed - 5 minutes to re-up
Ditched/Bailed - 3 minutes
Landed on the runway - Instant re-up possible...
More realistic..... Might make you think before you DIE
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Originally posted by muckmaw
...If I understand it right, if this works, we'll see more balanced numbers and greater plane diversification....
Not at the same time, you won't.
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Originally posted by TalonX
More realistic..... Might make you think before you DIE
Or that might make a larger number of people ever more timid and afraid to engage. Have to consider that too.
This new programming will bring change to the arena. That's certain. It may even bring the intended change to the arena. OTOH, the "law of unintended consequences" may rear up and bring change that none of us expected at all.
In any event. the horse is plum beaten. Best just fuggedabouditt until the actualy programming is in place for a tour or two and then evaluate it and see if it accomplished anything positive.
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Hey Skuzzy - can we get a lock here ? HiTech is obviously Trolling ... Hahahaha
Don't change a thing Dale .... Please .
Numbers is not a problem . Take away my ride or make me sit in a corner because 40 of my countrymen just logged on , now we have a problem .
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Originally posted by Muddie
Only problem there is affecting scoring won't work with the players like me that don't care diddly bout score. No incentive at all.
Muddie,
My idea is not intended to affect you. It's only intended to affect the score chasers. Score chasers, whether entire squads or lone wolfs care more about their score than what type of plane they fly or what country they fly for. They'll jump at the chance for an extra edge in scoring.
That's fine with me. No one is denied their plane of choice or time in the air. Organized squad nights are not affected. Squads that only fly the P-51D will be able to always fly it.
But the score hounds will switch to the outnumbered side to get their scores boosted. It doesn't take a large number of switchers to dramatically change the balance because there is a two times effect when a switch occurs. For example:
Rooks 150, Nits 125, Bish 100.
To even things out it only takes 25 Rooks to switch. More likely 15 would switch:
Rooks 135, Nits 125, Bish 115
The Rooks have gone from a 50% advantage over the Bish to a 17% advantage.
And if just 5 Nit score chasers switch too:
Rooks 135, Nits 120, Bish 120. Hardly an imbalanced arena.
Let the score chasers balance out the arena, and leave the rest of us to fly what and when we want!
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Translation of MOSQ: , I do not care about score, so make that the balance mechanic.
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Originally posted by hitech
Translation of MOSQ: , I do not care about score, so make that the balance mechanic.
HiTech,
To put it succinctly, YES.
The difference between the balance ideas is that the score idea does not deny any of your customers their time in the air or the type of plane they fly. It just gives an incentive to the score chasers to switch sides.
And the score chasers can still fly their LA-7s and P-51s.
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Hitech, how about 'layering' the planeset?
By this I mean that airfields near the 'front' will only have early war planes (1938-1940) enabled. Fields 'midway' will have only mid-war planes (41-42), and only the rear airfields will have the 'late' war planes (43-45) enabled.
of course, as fields are captured, the fields would update to reflect their position in the 'front'.
In a # imbalanced arena, the side that has been pushed far back will find itself with their full planesets enabled while the attackers will have only early and midwar enabled (unless they fly their late wars from waaaay away).
Side #'s imbalances will happen no matter what, so why not make a system that makes side imbalances be....not that bad? I'd be thrilled to log on and see one side near defeat and know i can up a P-51D while the majority of the saps ill be facing will be in P-40's or SpitV's :D
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Originally posted by Manedew
I see your point, but as it is now people can care little for perk points. They need a reason to care. With a fully scaleable perk system you might get more balance without haveing to greatly limit other areas to achive this balance.
I mean.... as the multiplyer works now it just effects your points earned and cost of planes. It could effect the price of planes themselves, into the negative. If your country has too many players and your perk multipler is like 0.70 maybe the p51d/la7 and similar eny planes should cost a couple of perks, increaseing in price as the multiplyer decreases. Likewise if a country has a 1.80 multiplyer a plane like the f4u-ic might be free. As the multiplyer increase maybe a plane like the 152 becomes free.
The point is....as the multiplyer decreases for a country with overwhelming numbers more and more planes could cost more and more perks. Forceing players to use perks or fly high ENY planes. This would increase the effect of the perk system by makeing perks more useful, and needed.
Something like this may not be a fix alone, but could allow you to take less extreme measures elsewhere. I always felt the uses of the perk system haven't been fully explored. Allowing the tradeing of perks, for instance, would have the double effect of being able to gamble with perks too :D Anyway, I think if you make the perk system mean more, it might have more of an effect.
Yea, what he said.
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Originally posted by TalonX
I still think you should have to wait if you get shot down.....I don't care about numbers....
Shotdown and killed - 5 minutes to re-up
Ditched/Bailed - 3 minutes
Landed on the runway - Instant re-up possible...
More realistic..... Might make you think before you DIE
Might turn the masses into runners and all we would see are p51s and la7.
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Originally posted by SunKing
Might turn the masses into runners and all we would see are p51s and la7.
Yup.
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I got kinda quiet on this Issue. I suppose I should add this.
HT, I hope it works as you intend. Im willing to give it my support. :)
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So whats the final verdict HT?
When will we see this put in place?
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Welp...just back from vacation and this was an interesting read :).
It would appear that the folks most affected by this change will be the one trick pony type of driver (note: not a slam at P51 drivers :)). I have doubts as to the effect it will have on arena numbers. But, I can see where it would impact the diversity of enemy planes that I get to see.
This could be interesting :).
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This will affect others besides the score chasers, which is why I really think it'll work.
I'm betting less experienced players are attracted to more populous team for the safety factor. In a swarm of green cons, it's easier to go unnoticed by the red guys -- and the red guys are more likely to be concerned about their own aluminum skins. Combine that with a high performance airframe, and newbies can stay airborne for longer periods than they're used too, mabe even get a kill or two on the vulchway.
With this system, the comfort of numbers will be balanced by having to fly in an inferior aircraft. Running will be harder, because the outnumbered Lala can chase down the Fw190A5 or whatever.
HiTech, i'd really suggest an explicit notice be made on the Hangar screen when the system kicks in. Rub our faces in it -- "The following aircraft are disabled due to numbers disparity: SpitIX, P51D, La7....." We have to make sure that the newbies know about their side's disadvantage; don't assume they'll figure it out, because some have trouble understanding why the throttle's important at first. ;) At the same time, the message reminds squads why they should consider moving to a lower number team.
the point is motivating country change when it's necessary -- so provide clear feedback to trigger the desired decision!
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Originally posted by MOSQ
My idea is not intended to affect you. It's only intended to affect the score chasers. Score chasers, whether entire squads or lone wolfs care more about their score than what type of plane they fly or what country they fly for. They'll jump at the chance for an extra edge in scoring.
But if score is their only motive they wont be using the banned ENY planes anyhow, those are almost impossible to really score with. I landed 6 kills in a 51D and got 1 or 2 points, then landed three in a D11 and got 30+.
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I thought the same thing at first, Edbert -- but I think they're talking about SCORE chasers, not PERK chasers.
Skilled pilots who want maximal KPD, Kills per Hour, etc may in fact be more likely to want high performance planes even at the cost of perks. Those guys might like safety of the high numbers team too -- so the proposal really could shift them away from the largest team
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How about a combination of ideas? Timer with ENY-limiting for the large team? Let me explain..
Say the rooks (I'm a Rook BTW) had the numbers they were havin a week ago, 50+ advantage at the least.
Say I up in a 110G2, and suffer a case of smoking hole syndrom.
Bam, five minute timer. Now, with the timer in place, I cannot fly, say, planes with less than 25 ENY value. As the timer expires, the limit slowly fades away, until I can fly anything again.
Best of both worlds, I think, as it penalizes the larger team, though not permanently, and it makes being grounded during 'time-out' optional.
It also makes alot of sense realisticly. Would the brass let you take up a shiney new Dora after you turned the last three into lawn-darts? No, they'd stick you in the Emil that's been sitting in a cornfield with the rats from NIMH living it in.
Ok, brain-storm mode off, please dont hurt me, especially if someone already suggested this.
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This is bad.
Look, the numbers are part of the dynamic, the politics, the whinefests, the very essence and fabric of the game.
No country dominates forever. Eventually every country gets its hoard. Folks who hate it can always change sides. Many squads tour every country.
As it was, we had variety. Some nights the numbers were even, some nights they weren't. The fortunes of war.
BUT you have removed the player's choice of being on the defensive, playing in the hoard, or somewhere in between. THIS ALSO IGNORES THE POSSIBILITIES TO ENHANCE THE STRAT SYSTEM! Give us an interesting (fun) way to keep those hoards starving for something and the differential in numbers actually enhances the gameplay. Er, sorry, simulation immersion.
I really hate the idea of artificially changing something so fundamental. This stuff, combined with the limited fuel porking is making the strategy monotonous. All that works is swarming airfields.
Plus it ain't realistic at all. A country with 2:1 odds ain't gonna be having 'automatic' hindrances.
Give us things to pork, let people join whichever side they choose, then fix the display ordering bugs. I'm flipping panzers like crazy.
Thanks in Advance, ;)
Mullah
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Simaril,
You are correct, I'm talking about Score, not Perk points.
Let's examine how the score chasers will view the new ENY based system. If they are on the larger numbers country, they will not be happy when they have to fly ENY 35 planes. Too easy to get killed by the opposing short numbers country LA-7s and P-51s. So they will likely switch to the short numbers country, unless the short country is so short as to be especially dangerous. So HiTechs new system will have the desired effect.
Except that it's going to really upset folks who are forced to fly planes they don't like if they want to stay with their squad and country.
In my suggestion, no one is forced to fly anything different. Everyone from all countries can fly LA-7s if they so choose. It's just that the outnumbered country's pilots will get more SCORE points than the steamrolling hordes. So a score chaser can choose voluntarily to fly for the outnumbered country if he wants an extra boost to his score.
Incentive is almost always better than punishment if you want to modify behavior in a group.
I don't really care if the ENY system is used on a personal level. I almost always fly the second tier planes anyway, the Mossie being my favorite. It will just make survival easier for me. But I think it will negatively impact the number of customers HTC has.
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MOSQ: You system was punishment also, just I wasn't punishing you.
HiTech
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huh?
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Originally posted by hitech
On the amount of time, I need to do some estamations of average time of flight vs down time. It is then a matter of picking the time limit to put aproximatly the same number in the air from each side.
HiTech
Why do we feel the need to do it at all? The three country design is supposed to take care of numbers imbalance. I am in the heavy handed camp on this one.
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Instead of totally disabling the AC with high ENY values for a country with a numbers advantage. Would it be possible to just limit the amount of fields you were able to fly them from.
For example if Rooks had a large numbers advantage they would only be able to fly high ENY AC from a field a certain distance away from the closest enemy field. The larger the numbers advantage the farther you have to fly. Say two fields with a 20% advantage three with a 30% advantage and so on a so forth.
It would be a huge pain in the bellybutton but it wouldnt limit what AC you could fly. I think it would help slow down the hordes of nik's LA7s and Ponys entering the fight and might motivate the lone wolfs to switch sides.
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Speaking about ideas, this was posted before 1 month ;)
>>>Originally posted by hitech
I sorta like this idea.
Not at all.. if i have two friends who now want to join AH and ofcourse they want to be with me, they must Can be with me.
Im more than 2 years here and i have never change country, but
every one who want to change must have the freedom to do it.
Every one has his reasons.
Ofcourse the numbers is a problem, but this can be solved with
other ways. Like.....
If the #s of a country are more than 25% if someone change a
country (to the weakest) give him 200 perks, or 500 or 1000.
BUT he cant change again for 1 month or if he want to go back
to the strongest country then take back his perks and take more
than what he have win.
Or, again, if someone go with the weakest give him unperked planes for 15-30 days lets say
__________________
There is a Art,maby black,
but Civilizations Born or Die
because of it.
The Art of War. <<<<<<<<<<<
http://www.flyaceshigh.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1310141&highlight=numbers#post1310141
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A time limit on reup's in the hopes that people change sides or LOG-OFF?
I realize the lopsidedness(is that a word?) has been a big issue for a while, but as a buissnessmen for many years, I don't think discouraging clients is a valid solution to the problem. If you suggested at a board meeting that you needed to find a way to get people to leave your "store" before getting what they came for you would probably be looking for a job the next day.(Or a good rehab!)
When dealing with this many people in such a come and go setting ,there may not be a real good answer. Alot of people have a loyalty to their "chess piece" and won't change sides, Nor is it fair to expect them to. Anything that inhibits a paying customers experience is not a good buissness tactic. I know some will say that the "numbers" inhibit their playing, but I am talking about the limitations that are being imposed. At least the outnumbered team you has the option not to up a vulched field, or better yet, quit whining and organize a raid to an undefended field. That will take pressure off the fields being attacked when people up to defend, and if they don't defend, take it.
As you said, the numbers have not been that far off lately. Yes rooks do RJO nights on sunday, but the whole arena knows that, and that is something the Rooks have been doing for a long time. To penalize one side for organizing one night a week isn't promoting teamwork, and thats a big reason to even have real time sims like this. Nothing is stopping the Bish or Knits from doing the same thing, and somtimes they do. The knights are famous for putting together good missions and taking fields when they don't have numbers.
What about(if possable) making planes on the ground unkillable ? Just till they leave the ground( like the guns on buffs not being able to fire till off the ground). That would at least give some guys a fighting chance to get some field defence going. Or make the VH's unkillable for the outnumbered team? Anything seems better than forcing paying customers to do somthing they really don't want to do.
Well, thats my 2 cents.
Feel free to point out spelling errors, call me stupid, or just complain about anything that pisses you off.
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AX,
I am with you on most everything. Nicely said. We've already done the perk amounts floating based on numbers. I don't think adding other changes are in our best interest.
Example... Rooks might have 160 people up vs 120 Bish and 110 Knits. Rooks might have only 6 fields compared to the other teams 20+ each. Are we going to then add further advantage to the teams with lesser numbers? Resets are about fields, not totally numbers. (tho who can deny numbers are what take fields in most cases)
The three country setup of AH is designed to allow the countries to pick whom and where they want to fight to further their cause. If we need to have forced numbers leveling, then the three country setup is invalid and mights well be scrapped. We can just do this with two countries and be done with it.
My opinon of course... but hey... I pays, I plays...
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Originally posted by hitech
To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.
But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack. We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides close to balance.
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
This would have a few effects.
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
Okay, I admit it. It's been a long several days, & it's past 2:30am now that I'm finally checking these boards. But, I gotta post really quick and agree with the minority (apparently) here...there is no way that I want to be stuck in a tower when I'm paying to play this game online. I don't pay money to sit in a tower.
I don't care if the enemy bombs my factory and disables a certain plane for a period of time. But, waiting around until the buzzer on some time clock goes off?!? No way. No way. :mad:
1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.
1) some people refuse to change countries. 2) how is it good business practice to force a paying customer to leave the shop unhappy??? jeeezus man.
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hitech and all,
Propably too late to have any impact on whether this addtion to the game stays or not.
The first I heard of it this weekend when I couldnt get in my Pony. I was sore as hell, but Ive had a few days to calm down and think it over and I still dont like the idea. hehe
First off let me say, I think this is the best game in town. Been playing ah and ah2 for 3 years now: the first and only fligth sim I ever played. I'm kind of a special case because I dont like flying anything but the Pony - no bombers - no spits - I dont even know what the inside of a 190 looks like. LOL! So I'm unusual I guess. In the best squad in the game - 412th - and thats our plane of choice. Anyway, everyones saying you'll get used to it . And i probably will, but I just wanted to let my opinions air on this post, like you asked. Well, I just know that now that's its part of the ah2 I dont like. I dont like being told what plane to use or not. Thats the way i feel, just wanted to get it off my chest.
One more thing hitech / HTC. Like i said this is the best game in town ! IMHO It does not need to be FIXED, its fine just the way it is, just upgrade everything - dont keep tweekin it here and there and losing 4 or 5 members with every tweek and suddenly look over into the MA one friday night and theres only 80 people.
Just my humble opinion,
hitech and all,
majortom
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hitech :
You could go an alternative way by using a
wingman system for bombers.
In "Another Multiplayer Sim" a system with wingmen has solved the obvious problem when b24s are "too good" to its opposition (he111's and ju88's) and a wingman system have been used.
Converting this into AH2 this could solve the number problems.
In simple you get 1-2 wingmen attached for you bomber and can be more effective against the better numbered adversories..
You should also be able to jump between your '"current " machine and the other machines if you get shot down, something the "other sim" does not have currently.
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After all the whining and consternation, Last night (Sunday) was fun again. I was concerned on how the side balancing would work. What I saw was far more enjoyable. No Rook Horde swarming over the map irresistably. Now, a couple of bases were took by the rooks, but it was more of a tactical attack then one of numbers.
I saw the Knights get the unbalance counteraction when Bishop's Numbers fell. The Rooks were not the only ones actioned.
Overall. I experienced much better game play. I felt that I could make some difference on Sunday night again!
Well Done HTC and Dale!
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when i cannot fly the p38 it totally suks specialy because there are no early type p38s.
and why in the fk is the envy on the p38 so low
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Actually the ENY on the 38 (assuming it hasnt changed) is way to high. Probably the best "value pick" in the plane set, however with the changes the fact that it's the only "major" plane without multiple varients is a legit issue. A 109/mustang/jug/190/LA/F4-U driver has options...even the 205 Zeke F-6 do if you include the 202/F4F as "varients". Truthfully I'm suprised the "penalty" went that high...kind of assumed it would hit the top 4-5 rides only...
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Why not just simply limit the ability to change countries to changing only to the weaker countries? If the rooks have 30 gazillion players, then why should anyone be allowed to switch to that country. Limiting the plane set is a bad idea. It reduces the playability of the game, screws missions up, squads that fly certain planes are being forsaken... Try defending a base against LA7's and Spit9's when you can't even up a 190A8. Switch countries? Uh no, I have friends and a squad that has friends on Knights, and we have been loyal to that country for years, and god knows how pleasant everyone is to people that switch countries. Offer incentive, not limitation. Change the perk system rather than the planes available.
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Originally posted by twitchy
Why not just simply limit the ability to change countries to changing only to the weaker countries? If the rooks have 30 gazillion players, then why should anyone be allowed to switch to that country.
We suggested that days prior to the start of this thread. By the current result, I assume it was deemed it would not be effective enough.
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Originally posted by twitchy
Why not just simply limit the ability to change countries to changing only to the weaker countries? If the rooks have 30 gazillion players, then why should anyone be allowed to switch to that country. Limiting the plane set is a bad idea. It reduces the playability of the game, screws missions up, squads that fly certain planes are being forsaken... Try defending a base against LA7's and Spit9's when you can't even up a 190A8. Switch countries? Uh no, I have friends and a squad that has friends on Knights, and we have been loyal to that country for years, and god knows how pleasant everyone is to people that switch countries. Offer incentive, not limitation. Change the perk system rather than the planes available.
FM-2 works great for base defense, so does a hurricane. Losing the spit V is a much bigger problem than losing a spit IX or la-7 with a capped base. La-5,Yak and 205 are all good also...I just cant find any merit anywhere in the "I lost my plane" argument. It really seems pretty simple. Either fly what you have available for the "country" you feel loyal to or fly what you want/need where the numbers are needed. Still amazed at how tough this simple concept seems to be for some folks.
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Making planes unavailable seems to have ticked off a lot of people. Making the perk cost more expensive didn’t seem to make so many mad. So, why not make the perk prices much more expensive. If an LA-7 was 100 points to a country with a lot more players it would be almost as much as a disadvantage/detriment of making it unavailable without the label of “unavailable”. Remember it’s the label of unavailable that seems to be making so many folks see red and foam at the mouth.
eskimo
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P38 is just as dweeb as a La7
everybody easily kills everything in it i guess.
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To solve side imbalencing, I think fit to allow player move to only sparsely populated country without time restriction to return.
Server decide that a country is sparsely populated country in much the same way as ENY system.
And system call that the country need "Volunteer Soldiers", and temporarily remove restrictions on time to wait 8hours to return thier primary country.
(Excuse my strange english:) I'm not good at using it.
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Waaaah they pork our fuel...
So now we have eternal, invincible 75% fuel at bases. :rolleyes:
Waaaah We're outnumbered...
So now we have to watch our planes get disabled. :rolleyes:
Waaaah They are base grabbing...
Now towns have a ridiculous # of buildings, early AM base takes nearly impossible. :rolleyes:
Waaaah Alt monkeys!
Now we burn a 1/4 tank of gas getting half a sector. :rolleyes:
Waaaah CV Guns Killing us!
So now you can kill all the guns on a CV group with a single p51 sortie (have screen shots of this) :rolleyes:
What's next, no kill ho shots? :rolleyes:
Maybe twenty goons to take a town? :rolleyes:
Anybody else see the pattern here?
When I sign on and can't even fly a F4u1d, or roll a panzer, then what is going on? :mad:
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Originally posted by twitchy
snip:
Maybe twenty goons to take a town? :rolleyes:
Aside from all the other (to some extent I agree with some of what you wrote) making it take more troops to capture does make some sense. It really did make a difference for the good when we upped the number of troops needed to capture at AW from one goon load to one and a half or two.
Fighting is what makes this game fun. You can be losing and having fun, so long as you're getting plenty of chances to get yer licks in. Make the fights last longer and you go a long way to solving the problem of numbers imbalance.
culero
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Originally posted by BUG_EAF322
when i cannot fly the p38 it totally suks specialy because there are no early type p38s.
and why in the fk is the envy on the p38 so low
good point
the country was high numbers loses one of my fave CV killers :(
i think if this system remains in place, ALL fighters that had older models should have at least one. I mean look how many spits/109/190s we have. 51s,47s and even the la5/7 allows you to fly simular planes...maybe a old P38 will be nice :D
(im not sure how much work that will take, but it would be nice)
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Sucks to get punished for belonging to the same country you have stuck with for almost 4 years through thick and thin and months and months of being outnumbered and spanked night after night. Things have always shifted over time. Now we seem to need to force it. I'd like to see more planes perked than a time limit. I have limited time to play anyway and now I will be forced to sit, unable to fly unless I am willing to change countries. No doubt my monthly fee will not be discounted for the time I sit or the planes I can't fly.
I'm sure the answer is... "just change countries you whiner". Did you ever consider that some people / squads are very loyal to the country they fly for and have spent a long time building relationships with other pilots and squads in that country. I know for me the relationships and teamwork are a big part of why I play the game. If I just wanted to fly around and shoot stuff I don't need to play a game like this I can just buy a PC game and play against / with AI.
So I guess that means I don't like it. I do understand the issue that faces you though and I'll try to be patient and see how things work out.
Thanks for listening.
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Originally posted by humble
Either fly what you have available for the "country" you feel loyal to or fly what you want/need where the numbers are needed. Still amazed at how tough this simple concept seems to be for some folks.
Yeah... it's probably no more complex a concept than the two smaller countries exploiting the three country model and ganging on the larger country until odds even a bit. Except it does require a code change... the three country model doesn't.
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Anything that limits gameplay will ruin the perceived value of the game - "I can't fly the Mustang so why am I paying for this game?"
So the real issue here is:
squadrons
and
missions
being too effective in base captures.
Simple answer: change the strategic aspect of the game so that instead of having to capture ALL of a country's bases, the "winner" would only need to capture a select few that could be capturable by the other sides as well: i.e. "neutral" bases to fight over. This would give a country "on the ropes" some bases from which to launch a counterattack.
Or
player-mannable guns at towns with a lethality equal to a 20mm cannon, that regen at the same rate as the hangars.
Also,
Bring the Malcolm Hood to the P-51B! You could call it a P-51C! [/b]
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Originally posted by hitech
Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.
Your thoughts?
HiTech
I don't like it.
I prefere to be restricted to flying Hurri 1 or C202 than sit idle in the tower and talk smack on channel 1 (ok 200 now).
It will achive the goal though. The moment that kicks in I'll immetiatly change country or log off. I have little time to play these days and I won't waste it in the tower.
Bozon
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Originally posted by bozon
I don't like it.
I prefere to be restricted to flying Hurri 1 or C202 than sit idle in the tower and talk smack on channel 1 (ok 200 now).
I agree. I'd rather be forced to fly a B-stang than sit on my hands. I only get an hour a day to fly and the last thing I want to do is spend $15 a month on a game that I end up using as a chatroom.
Speaking of the P-51B, Bring the Malcolm Hood to Aces High!
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bozon: Your a little behind the times. This thread was the first idea, we changed to the current ENY balance system.
HiTech
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Another possibility....
Personally I think this is as good a solution as possible, however given all the issues another possibility comes to mind.
Modify the leathality, give the side with the largest numbers "rubber bullets"... let em fly anything they want but turn those 20mm hazooka's into .303's:)...
:D
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Originally posted by hitech
bozon: Your a little behind the times. This thread was the first idea, we changed to the current ENY balance system.
HiTech
lol, I saw this thread first time and couldn't read through 500 posts :)
I'm always the one to wake up in the middle of a conversation and talk nonesense:p
Bozon
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Whoa...HT bought an Icon:aok
What the hell IS it???:rolleyes:
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I think a time delay is a great idea, maybe 10 mintues max to 1 minute min depending on the current blanace?
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Originally posted by DrDea
Whoa...HT bought an Icon:aok
What the hell IS it???:rolleyes:
Not really sure, but can anybody develop this idea --
Does it start with "I oversee ...."? I'm not sure what to do with the "oad". "online air defense"????
I never have ahd the patience for these puzzles.....
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Originally posted by Simaril
Not really sure, but can anybody develop this idea --
Does it start with "I oversee ...."? I'm not sure what to do with the "oad". "online air defense"????
I never have ahd the patience for these puzzles.....
Not really a puzzle, more of a friendly little joke.
He writes game code + doesnt spell so good = I coad
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:)
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Originally posted by Murdr
Not really a puzzle, more of a friendly little joke.
He writes game code + doesnt spell so good = I coad
Hehehe
(Like I said, i'm not very good at those things)
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HiTech,
I'm way late on this issue, but I've been thinking... :) I've tried to read all the posts.. HA..
The real issue with numbers imbalance, I believe, is having no chance to fight from a good position.
There are a number of squads that fly to a base in groups of 4 to 6, get it flashing and vulch for points. They'll stay there for as long as they have the advantage and then leave when the fight gets equal. They have no intention of taking bases and no interest in a reset.
Having a large imbalance at any particular time creates the same situation. With only a few fields left, it is very difficult to get up into a position to fight.
When I run into the perk-hunters, I up from another field and try them on from a position of advantage. It may not work, but it beats dying 10 times to get into the air.
I looked at the options. I believe "hardening" the losers as they lose more only slows the game. Limiting rides really makes folks mad. Perking all planes puts newbies at a real disadvantage but comes close to balancing the situation.
I do not know how to implement a "climb" advantage to simulate taking off from a field at a distance, but perhaps one or two "off map" fields could become available when one side is down to 3 or 4 bases, maybe more. This would allow the "underdog" to arrive at a reasonable altitude and have a chance to have a reasonable Kill to Death ratio in the fight. Everyone gets their ride, the reset goes to the organized and the low side gets kills, too.
When 30 folks are vulching a field immediately after a reset, nobody complains, they up their favorite ride from somewhere else and jump the gaggle, or they, themselves, attack an alternate base.
If you could create this situation when the reset is almost accomplished, I think you’d have a solution almost everyone could live with.
( I’d also vary the spawn location for gvs by 500 meters or so randomly in direction and distance to discourage spawn-campers, but that is another thread… )
Respectfully,
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Don't think I've ever seen HT fly Rook... :D
I can only hope this creates balance because if it doesn't there may be a heavy price if not handled right. I guess business involves risk.
Wish you luck HT.