Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Midnight on August 17, 2004, 09:27:05 PM
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All of this arguing over the number system has clouded my mind. An email disscussion with my squadmates about the entire 412th pulling accounts has made me realize what the problem really is.
Where is TOD? It's been almost 2 years since the con where HTC told us about what the new AHII would have "Tour of Duty"
MA Gameplay has declined and just continues to get worse and worse. There are almost no strategic elements left now, so the only way to win has become to overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers. All of that has promoted the gangbanging and giant number inbalances.
Just adding new aircraft and vehicles for 2.01 is not going to change how the MA works. It's still going to be a giant furball of fighters and GVs. From what we've heard so far, nothing will change in the basic gameplay concept.
If you ask me now, the best way to fix the number inbalance is to give us something new in gameplay. Endless furballs that cannot be won get boring after a while.
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Seconded. Bring on the TOD.
TOD is the only thing that will get me to resub. MA gameplay got so boring for me that I didn't play for about 3 months before I finally pulled my sub.
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If i remember right there is no Rook/Bishop/Knight or squad orientated gameplay?
Guess we won't see any Rooks there because of their country loyalty.
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Originally posted by Kev367th
If i remember right there is no Rook/Bishop/Knight or squad orientated gameplay?
Guess we won't see any Rooks there because of their country loyalty.
You may not see many lone-ranger type furballers from ANY country in ToD. But you will see plenty of squad oriented types from every country (including Rooks) in the ToD. It's what many of us were looking forward to in AH2. HTC has obviously been very busy with the flight model, a couple of new planes, terrain rebuilding of pre-existing maps and graphics texture loading issues to quite be able to address that.
Soon hopefully.
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Have faith, Yankee capitalism will succeed. All it needs is time
and a thinner profit margin.
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Yes HTC, i dont usually ask for much, but how about some TOD info here?
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I'm VERY curious about tour of duty, I hope it turns out to be everything (and more) that some of you believe it will be. Personally I think you have a couple of developmental problems that may be tough to crack.
The easiest to spot is the "launch cycle"...people dont want to wait here...wow...how you solve that in TOD.
The human (in my case wife,kids,real world) factor, here you just "bail"...it's a problem in scenarios and will certainly be an issue (minor probably) in TOD
The shear boredom involved in a "real time" simulation. It's a major issue for the scenarios (IMO) and will be here...fly 30 minutes before you get to a fight?? (just guessing).
Finally look at the learning curve for a newbie, he waits for a mission...flys his hop, dies quickly and....zzzzzzzzzzz.
Anyone who's been the first to fall in a scenario or KOTH knows the feeling...AARRRGGHHHH. I just hope TOD doesnt stand for Tons Of Dullness....
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Noobs would be better off going to the Main before the Tod so they can learn faster and fly all sorts of planes in all ways:aok
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Originally posted by simshell
Noobs would be better off going to the Main before the Tod so they can learn faster and fly all sorts of planes in all ways:aok
Ahhh, but as we have seen many many do not fly more than 1-2 planes, do not learn the rest, and have no desire to do so. Ironicly, these same folks are clamoring for ToD, which by definition will require that they know many planes intimately.
Lets say your squad is an "Historic" P-51D squad. What do you do from '42-'44 before the USAAF gets the '51? If you were smart, you would be learning the P-40E and the P-47D-11 now so you will be ready in ToD. Oh, but your an Historic P-51D squad, you dont even fly the P-51B, much less the P-40 or P-47.
Personally, I'm with Humble on this one. I'm not wishing for ToD to fail, I wish HT the best of luck, but I dont see it being a huge success for the reasons humble noted.
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Im not going ot ask wherer it is or demand its immediate arrival.
But I am asking if we can at least get a staus report on TOD?
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What is TOD?
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A backward DOT.......................... ...TOD, Tour of Duty (I think.)
Will TOD be run concurrently with the MA? I cant see TOD surviving longer than 2 weeks if it is. Im all for TOD. I think the game element needs something badly to spice it up again, but I would think judging from past BBS comments and the numbers played in the other arenas that TOD with the MA at its side will surely die and unwarrented, untried death.
Give it a fair go. Let it run alone. Is the community ready for that?
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Originally posted by SC-Sp00k
Give it a fair go. Let it run alone. Is the community ready for that?
No I don't think HT would do that, at least I hope not.
I believe it will be a seperate arena. It will be similar to a boxed game with missions part players / part AI. It will be more of a rollplaying A2A game with more emersion. A progressing career for YOU the pilot.
Then again I may be completely wrong. ;)
I would like to hear an update / estimated time for release also.
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"I would like to hear an update / estimated time for release also."
I'd like to add an "aye_shrecking_men" to that suggestion.
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Two Weeks
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I dont think TOD will be like what many expect.....
You will have Just One Life. At least with the same avatar.
Do you know what that means ?
Every known squad will be wiped out after the first week and the first deaths because of the confusion in the change of names.
After the first month no one will know who is the other.
Missions given to accomplise with military timing and passing between enmy fighters,ack,flak every time every mission with
Only One Life.
Now remember the chicken tourist flying at 20-30k of the known
uber:lol country.
They had to lose nothing, and they was continued to make tourism up @ 30k and lose their fun.
Imagine them flying in the 1 life enviroment :rofl
But also for the others it will be boring because almost everyone
will avoid fights because This Is The Nature of TOD.
Every one will return to the Hapy Anarchy Of MA.
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Originally posted by Grits
Ahhh, but as we have seen many many do not fly more than 1-2 planes, do not learn the rest, and have no desire to do so. Ironicly, these same folks are clamoring for ToD, which by definition will require that they know many planes intimately.
Lets say your squad is an "Historic" P-51D squad. What do you do from '42-'44 before the USAAF gets the '51? If you were smart, you would be learning the P-40E and the P-47D-11 now so you will be ready in ToD. Oh, but your an Historic P-51D squad, you dont even fly the P-51B, much less the P-40 or P-47.
Personally, I'm with Humble on this one. I'm not wishing for ToD to fail, I wish HT the best of luck, but I dont see it being a huge success for the reasons humble noted.
I already know enough about these planes and will be happy to fly them in TOD. In the MA, I want / demand / expect to fly the P-51D.
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And a midget wants to be tall.
Quit your complaining already.
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Originally posted by Polaris
And a midget wants to be tall.
Quit your complaining already.
Would you complain if alll of a sudden say you cell phone provider said "ahh man we had too many people in your town sign up and it is taxing our system in that area. So this is what were gonna do. You still pay us what you have been but now you can only use your cell phone when less people are using it in your area. Sound fair?" The bottom line is HTC is now limiting use of their product and still charging the same fee, a HUGE business mistake. I plan on pulling my subscription unless this ENY #'s shchizz goes back to the way it was or at least doesnt limit what I can fly.
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schizer: So under that same thought prossess should we be charging more every time we have added a new plane or feature?
HiTech
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"You still pay us what you have been but now you can only use your cell phone when"
Sorry but that is a horrible analogy and completely wrong.
If your cellphone company provided you with 72 cellphones to use with your service plan but said that in heavily congested areas you could not use 5 of them then your analogy would have been even remotely applicable.
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Originally posted by hitech
schizer: So under that same thought prossess should we be charging more every time we have added a new plane or feature?
HiTech
The bottom line HiTech, if people don't like your product, they don't have to suscribe to it. I think the number balancing is brilliant - it forces players to stop country hopping to bash a smaller numbered side. You may, however, see the result of players who are country specific - they like flying Bishop, or Rook, or Knight and are hurt that by being loyal to a side, they are feeling this rule is just punishing them.
It's also because they are not looking at the bigger picture - balance.
Hitech - perhaps if you threw in larger gameplay factors such as attacking the fuel factory can knock down a countries fuel for the bases, or if you attack industry targets it limites the number of aircraft available would overshadow the # balancing?
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Originally posted by Midnight
I already know enough about these planes and will be happy to fly them in TOD. In the MA, I want / demand / expect to fly the P-51D.
You expect to fly the P-51D for the ROOKS...assuming that they are the country effected most by the "equalizer" then your left with a choice between flying ROOK or flying the D pony.
The issue here is one of leveling the playing field...obviously the plan is to encourage migration by restricting the plane set. Personally unless you reach a point where the only birds you can up are 202's & spit I's it really shouldn't matter what you have available. They will all get the job done reasonably well.
Still an arguement that simply boils down to "want/demand/expect" to have everything the way I want. Since others obviously "want/demand/expect" the balance issue to be addressed you have the current situation.
Why not rotate the squad to the side with the lowest #'s...?
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Originally posted by schizer
Would you complain if alll of a sudden say you cell phone provider said "ahh man we had too many people in your town sign up and it is taxing our system in that area. So this is what were gonna do. You still pay us what you have been but now you can only use your cell phone when less people are using it in your area. Sound fair?" The bottom line is HTC is now limiting use of their product and still charging the same fee, a HUGE business mistake. I plan on pulling my subscription unless this ENY #'s shchizz goes back to the way it was or at least doesnt limit what I can fly.
That analogy was so far off, it's not even worth a reply.
They're not limiting anything. You can still fly your precious little plane. YOU have chosen not to fly it. Go ahead, Throw your little temper tantrum and pull your subscription. Hope it makes you feel better. You won't find a better flight sim.
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Originally posted by Mister Fork
The bottom line HiTech, if people don't like your product, they don't have to suscribe to it. I think the number balancing is brilliant - it forces players to stop country hopping to bash a smaller numbered side. You may, however, see the result of players who are country specific - they like flying Bishop, or Rook, or Knight and are hurt that by being loyal to a side, they are feeling this rule is just punishing them.
It's also because they are not looking at the bigger picture - balance.
Hitech - perhaps if you threw in larger gameplay factors such as attacking the fuel factory can knock down a countries fuel for the bases, or if you attack industry targets it limites the number of aircraft available would overshadow the # balancing?
It has nothing to do with "country loyalty" I could care less about what side I am on, in the past 4 months I have switched probably 6-7 times. For my $14.99 I expect to fly what I want when I want, just like it has been for years. I log on at X time for rooks and I might be able to fly say a P51D, 2 hours later I cant, so I log out. I come back later in the evening and the numbers have switched I have to switch to another country to fly the plane I want, then say 2 hours later that X amount of players have done the same thing, so now I have to go say the Nits. In effect I have had to change countries three times in little over 6 hours. Seems like alot of work to just fly what I want to.
The wah wah the sides are uneven crap is nothing but drivel, how many times in the past 4 years have the sides been uneven, too many to count. So why all of a sudden is there an urgency to "balance" the sides.
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Originally posted by humble
Why not rotate the squad to the side with the lowest #'s...?
Because the side with the lowest numbers changes throughout the day or day of week. Tango and I have already stated that we would move the suqad to another country IF we were garunteed that in doing so we would always have the P-51D.
It's a logistics issue... You can't keep a team (squad) organized if the playing field (country) you are playing on is being changed all the time.
Example (again)
Squaddies 1 & 2 log in at 5:00 and bish are heavily outnumbered, so they switch there. They log out again at 6:00 when the Knights are now in the hole and Bish have too many players - hence squaddies 1 & 2 can't fly the P-51D now.
Squaddie 3 & 4 log in at 6:05 and switch to knights so they can fly the P-51D. They log out at 7:30
At 9:00, the whole squad logs in for squad night and want to fly as Rooks because now the Rooks are outnumbered and the P-51D is available. Squaddies 1 & 2 are stuck in Bish and Squaddies 3 & 4 are stuck in knights... Now the squad is in three countries. Sure, the ones in Rooks can switch, but that still leaves 2 squaddies stuck in another country.
You see the problem?
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A very valid point...
Would it be possible to alter the restrictions to always allow a player to rotate to the lowest #'d side? Or to have an "autoselect" that would automatically place you on lowest #'d team when you logged in (if you enabled it).
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Originally posted by Grits
Ahhh, but as we have seen many many do not fly more than 1-2 planes, do not learn the rest, and have no desire to do so. Ironicly, these same folks are clamoring for ToD, which by definition will require that they know many planes intimately.
That's an amazing leap of logic that the people who prefer a particular plane for their squad ops in MA are not able/willing to fly in ToD. The two arenas are essentially two different games. Many of the complaints about plane restrictions in MA won't matter in ToD, because EVERYONE will have certain plane restrictions in ToD. No ?
I predict a bright future for ToD if only because it will be attractive to squads who like strategy as well as dogfights. If nothing else, maybe MA will become such a hostile playing environment for strategic operations that squads won't try to figure out how to balance sides in MA, they'll:
1. Move to ToD.
2. the overall numbers of online players will drop in MA.
3. The side balancing solution will become less painful in MA as it becomes more dogfight oriented and swapping countries becomes less of an issue.
Ultimately, this is about the pain (for some) of adapting to a more restrictive setup in MA. (and please don't quibble with me about the term restrictive. I know I still have the choice to fly all the planes I want on a different side of the map. But everyone would have to agree that ALL of my previous choices are no longer available to me as I am now restricted under certain circumstances). New people coming in to play AH2 will have no baggage with regard to this restriction or "how it used to be" - they will get in and go to town. Whatever AH2 loses in people they will eventually gain back in new recruits who simply never knew any different. This will be the game they know.
Now... someone asked the question earlier in the thread. Is there any hint about when ToD may be expected ?
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Originally posted by Midnight
...Endless furballs that cannot be won get boring after a while.
Really?
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humble:
I had posed a similar concept question in another thread. No one's replied to it yet though. Also my thread regarding the auto-balancing sort of derived from thinking about this. Here's a specific example of how it might be done at least to keep squadron cohesion?
With the current system, could safeguards be built in so that we don't lose squadron cohesion due to the spikiness of short term numbers and country shifts that gets members locked in countries away from their squadrons? E.g:
- AUTO COUNTRY SWITCH: 1st squad member goes online and is in country A. 2nd squad member who several hours before was in country B goes online 10 minutes later and is automatically switched to the country A to join the 1st squad member. Auto country switch would have to overide any country time limits.
- COUNTRY SWITCH VOTE: If there are multiple squad members online a squad member doesn't switch countries individually but only switches after a "squad switch vote" (like map votes or kick votes in FPS multiplayer games). On a successful vote all squad members online switch to the voted country by the system.
- VOTING PARAMETERS: Votes can only be issued in tower. Squad members flying can respond to votes. The system doesn't switch countries for the squad until all squad members are in the tower on a successful vote. All members already in tower waiting can't re-up until the last squad member still flying lands at which point they are all switched by the system to the new country.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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I think a "recall" feature for the CO/XO of a squad would be a great idea. Basically it would "autoswitch" (no clue how) all squad members to the country the CO/XO was logged into.
Only major (non technical) issue I can see is the worry HT has expressed regarding "spys"...
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I understand your conscerns Midnight, but usually the ENV restrictions for Bish or Knits do not last long. We seem to have a new influx of newbies which will skew things a little for a while, but long run things will even out.
Each side has its peaks, but I think the problem was that the Rooks were starting to get large numbers on a lot of nights not just Sundays.
Don't think either of the three countries will guarantee you the 51D at all times at the moment, maybe you just need to see which country is limited the least often if this is your criterion.
See ya in the MA
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humble:
Yeah that's true. A possible fix might be for the auto-country-switch that this is applied for the entire squad to all members who are not online at the given time. Also the 6 hour switch limit is placed on the entire squad and not to individual squad members.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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TOD arena will probably replace the CT arena, imho. But I think more planes needs to be introduced, like more axis bombers for example.
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How about squad planes... each squad can register 2 planes that will always be available to that squad, regardless of numbers.
Therefor the squad accepts higher min eny rating for all other planes, for example eny rating is at 10 the squad can only fly planes with 15 or higher OR one of the 2 selected " Squad " planes.
Only squads that exclusively fly 1 or 2 of the high rated planes would opt for this, so the higher eny rating wouldnt matter to them.
Should be "Squad Planes" may not be perked planes.
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Schutt - would just be a way to 'bypass' the restrictions that every else has at one time or another. Sorry, don't agree.
It may be that if ENV is limited they could get the low ENV but pay a price in perks for them. I don't go along with the 20 or so suggested in other posts. If Spit 14 and Tempests are 45/60 respectively, let them have the La7, P51 for around 140/160 perks.
But then we get the 'its too high' whines.
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quote:
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Originally posted by Midnight
...Endless furballs that cannot be won get boring after a while.
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Originally posted by Furious
Really?
Maybe not for you. Or some others.
But for myself and many others..
Yea, really