Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Grizzly on April 29, 2005, 03:00:56 PM
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You have a great game, but I wonder about a few things.
You created a game with the objective of capturing bases. And to facilitate this you have provided limited means to defend these bases. It's difficult to hit anything with the anti-aircraft guns, which seem to suffer greatly from lag, so they become less affective with more action. You dummied up the bombers now so once again they have pinpoint accuracy from great altitudes. And arial defence is often futile because the enemy will eventually attack in massive force to overcome any ability to stop them.
The worse part, which I'm sure is aggravated by your reward for arena capture, is that the most affective means of capturing bases is to avoid or overcome enemy resistance. In real life this would be terrific, but in a game where the fun is fighting each other, this land grab mania is counter productive. After all, if you want a land grab game with little or no defensive capability, why not just design a land grab race game? Oh wait... you did.
I humbly suggest you drop the arena capture initative and let the players set their own game objectives. I can have more fun fighting all night over a single base than swarming across the map grabbing bases by the dozen. Heck, players may as well capture bases offline if they don't want to fight for them. The advantage of online multiplayer games is that the players can provide the opposition, objectives and tactics. By providing the objective you are artificially limiting the game. Base capture is fine, but arena annihilation is simply disruptive.
I suggest you provide manned flak at the bases, similar to the 5" ship guns.
I suggest you make the bombers less accurate with altitude with bomb divergence. You don't have to make them go through the hastle of calibrating their bomb sights... just make the accuracy irratic, like it's supposed to be. The way it is now, they can hit pin point targets from 20K, but I can barely hit a fighter flying directly at my field gun.
And what's with the location of cities? In most cases you can't see the city from the base, and in many cases the cities are closer to an enemy spawn point than the base. Doesn't the map room sensibly belong on base where it can be defended, and why can't we have manned AA in the cities?
The idea is competition. I like the competition of fighting over bases... but what we have is a competition in capturing bases the fastest.
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Grizzly,
While I respectfully agree with your opinions and frustrations with the game I really like the land grab aspect of the game for a number of reasons. Rather that bore you to death I feel that in order to successfully capture a base it requires working with a number of different people. This makes the game so much more immersive for me in that I forget about everything else in the real world and feel like im
"in the game". If you take out that aspect and go purely air-to-air combat I feel people would fight mainly for themselves with the exception of wingmen ect.
To me there is a feeling of excitement to work together with others (ie someone de-acking, dropping vh or other hangers, the town, and protecting a goon bringing troops inbound) that makes this game so unique and great. For air-to-air only engagements it makes sense to maybe play a game like IL2 that emphasis that with better graphics, ect.
Everytime I show someone else AH on my computer they cannot believe that a war game is waging 24-hrs a day with all the things going on. When you stop and think about it, it's pretty cool and complex what we are involved with in for entertainment.
That said I'm all for more emmersion and when subs and more sea warfare is emplemented I get more and more excited to image it. I hope you find the balance you are looking for and wish you the best of luck!
Regards,
Higgins
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Someone gets it!! There may yet be hope...
Fighter Hangar
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And they're off!
the next few posts are almost predictable
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10$ on the furballers.
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I agree with the 'Defenceless town'. It is the thing the enemy is after and yet you have no manable AAA.:confused:
I would like to see something like 88mm flak usable on bases (and town), and i would really like to see some manable AAA with higher rate of fire then the 37mm.
I would love to have 20mm flak guns.
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Ammo bunker
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Originally posted by JAWS2003
I agree with the 'Defenceless town'. It is the thing the enemy is after and yet you have no manable AAA.:confused:
I would like to see something like 88mm flak usable on bases (and town), and i would really like to see some manable AAA with higher rate of fire then the 37mm.
I would love to have 20mm flak guns.
Is the changes' goal to stop captures, or just to make captures challenging enough that you have to work for them? I really suspect that the base capture frustrations spring NOT from AH's design, but from the fight styles of the players.
How many times have we seen hours -- even days -- spent trying to capture single bases? Great fights come because somebody is trying to do something, and somebody else is trying to stop them. It is exactly AH's underlying "plotline" (base captures to win an imaginary war) that gives focus, adn ultimately prevents boredom. AH is MORE than a multiplayer arena with great fights, which is why many choose it over games with more awesome graphics, but less awesome gameplay.
Game design requires challenges that require skill and effort, but are achievable -- so that they don't become hopelessly discouraging. This is exactly why we no longer play tic-tac-toe (we've figured out the system that gurantees at least a draw; if both players know the system, draws are inevitable) -- and why most of us wouldnt try to challenge a pro pitcher to a home run derby.
The goal of AH game design, IMHO, is NOT to make base captures hard enough to prevent "sneaking" nor to make them meaningless. The goal should be to achieve a balance, so that both sides of the toolshed/furball divide are equally challenged and equally happy.
Unfortuantely, with most of our aggressive personalities, perhaps the phrasing shoudl be "equally UNhappy."
And, be realistic. If game balance tweaks are introduced, it will jsut change tactics. If Wirbelwinds are introduced, their lethality will push VH higher on the priority list. If it's more dangerous to dive low, you'll get drops from higher alts, or more buff runs in base attacks. The limiter isnt so much the game as it is the attitudes of our teammates, who quite reasonably would rather do what they like doing since they're the ones paying the bill.
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Honestly, I think the balance is about right. We shouldnt expect the game system to overcome tactical target fixation; if a base is flashing, somebody who cares about captures should defend it. If nobody cares enough to defend it -- doesn't that prove that most of the affected people are more interested in something else?
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quad 20 mm flak guns....ahhhhhhhhh :D
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I suggest you provide manned flak at the bases, similar to the 5" ship guns.
lol
there goes the neighborhood, for at least dot vis distance in each direction
or have one game called "Aces High" and another called "Aces Low"
move all airborne items to CT ie "Aces High", leaving anything that cannot take off in MA ie "Aces Low" :)
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In!
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Is it time already?
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I suggest you provide manned flak at the bases, similar to the 5" ship guns.
If dis aint a fuggin troll then you need to lay down the crack pipe and get help.
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Make the 5 inch a non resupplable thing. That has to be taken out from the ground then you can fly all you want.
just a suggestion, for the gun if it would be introduced and that off the top of my head.
Bases should be harder to capture. right now you can take a base with 3 guys if you want to. 2 drop town and one troops. mostly I think this happens about 3-4am in the U.S. when no one is on.
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Grizzly;
i suggest you start and design your own On-line Multiplayer gameing system,then you can play either way you want too.
"I fit ain't broke then don,t fix it!"
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Oh is this another whine about "How dare I have to up a fighter and defend my base from those evil, marauding enemies!".
C'mon. Its a strat game. You want to defend a base from an numerically superior enemy...mass your own and defend. Asking for "powerups" or the like because your countrymen do not share your zeal to defend an airbase is just weak.
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I think you missed his point LP. I don't think he minds upping for defense.
I feel similarly (minus the extra manned guns stuff). I want to fight other folks. Defense or offense, I don't care and I would think that this is what would attract most folks to an online combat simulator.
...but, it's not. Many others just want to "win". To accomplish this, whether it means resetting the map or shooting someone down, they avoid a "fight" as much as possible.
It's all about the horde. Safety in numbers, I guess [shrugs].
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Cities are a little too easy. AH1, if ya rolled into a city ack had to be down...or it would kill yas...unmanned but deadly. Now you can roll right up to city ack and kill it with no fear.
Then there was the hardened bldgs. ya either rolled armor, or called in bombs to take them down before you could take the city.
Now all ya have to do is flatten the bldgs and drop a load of drunks, low and behold the city (and base) is yours.
I agree...don't fix what isn't broke..........however in this case -- the city ack IS broke & needs to be fixed. And more than likely, if HT does re-activate city ack I'll be the first to lose a tiger to it..........go figure :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Morpheus
If dis aint a fuggin troll then you need to lay down the crack pipe and get help.
.report Morpheus
:D
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isnt there another arena like the dueling arena..just grab some buds and furball all day. This game would be extremely boring without capture, be it that it takes a mass to capture a base due to the fact that people are are constantly joining the game and leaving and not to mention many languages are playing and abilities.
be nice to have some 88's with historic aiming and fuzing.
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Grizzly, didnt have you flaks and M16 to deffend your base from the ground? Didnt have you planes to set up deffensive CAPs? Can't you take off from another base and go to deffend the attacked one?
Are you one of these quakers that only want to jump inmediately into a gun and start killing risking nothing (even no time) and ruinning, without any effort, the fun of people that, at least, spent several minutes flying to your base?
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MANDO:
"Are you one of these quakers that only want to jump inmediately into a gun and start killing risking nothing (even no time) and ruinning, without any effort, the fun of people that, at least, spent several minutes flying to your base?"
You're kiddin right?
Quakers? and let me guess, in WWII the plane landed and went to a "hotpad" and was reloaded in 30sec's? You jump from pilot to gunner and the plane "flys itself"? talk about "quakers"
You gotta be kiddin me, I forgot the only person "risking" something is the guy flying to an enemy air field or ship. The guys on the ground trying to protect themselves and their fields/cities are risking nothing?
You bumped your head my friend
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Originally posted by Eagler
I suggest you provide manned flak at the bases, similar to the 5" ship guns.
lol
there goes the neighborhood, for at least dot vis distance in each direction
or have one game called "Aces High" and another called "Aces Low"
move all airborne items to CT ie "Aces High", leaving anything that cannot take off in MA ie "Aces Low" :)
I believe that is the one thing that WOULD get me to the CT. :lol
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Y'all can talk but when is a Dev gonna say, "Were thinking about it." Most of the great ideas here are not even noticed.
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There is not one anti-aircraft gun, fixed or mobile that can touch
a high altitude bomber formation. The M-16's Osti's and the
player operated field guns work good against low flying planes
but high bombers, forget it, might just as well not fire. And I can't
recall the last time I saw the A/I puffy ack damage a bomber
formation.
Mike
BTMe62
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Originally posted by Higgins
Grizzly,
While I respectfully agree with your opinions and frustrations with the game I really like the land grab aspect of the game for a number of reasons. Rather that bore you to death I feel that in order to successfully capture a base it requires working with a number of different people. This makes the game so much more immersive for me in that I forget about everything else in the real world and feel like im
"in the game". If you take out that aspect and go purely air-to-air combat I feel people would fight mainly for themselves with the exception of wingmen ect.
You may have misunderstood.
I'm not advocating taking away base capture. To the contrary, it gives us something to fight over. But I don't think the objective needs to be the entire arena. However, you could still strive for that if you wish (choices). The problem is when Dale makes this the official game objective, that's how the vast majority play it. And since the most effective way to capture bases is to avoid enemy contact or use overwhelming force to overcome it, the result is the milk running and massive horde land grab attacks so common in AH.
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Originally posted by Mobius0077
Y'all can talk but when is a Dev gonna say, "Were thinking about it." Most of the great ideas here are not even noticed.
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I don't agree :rolleyes: HT listens, makes changes in effort to improve the quality and play. Does that means they're going to take action on every whine or whim.......? I don't think so....and if they do.....then me first......I still want wings on my Osti HTC!! :rofl
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Originally posted by Darkish
10$ on the furballers.
I'm not advocating furballing. But for those who like it that's fine. Reread what I said and try to realize I advocate making all forms of game play available, including land grabbng. I'm just saying not to make this the built in objective of the AH.
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I advocate making all forms of game play available,
It seems rather silly for you to think that any form of game play isn't already available for you to choose from.
No matter what the "norm" of AH might be for most or some of the players in this game, my one joy will always be fighters and fighting. I may hop in a bomber from time to time, screw around in a GV or even join a mission from time to time. Why? Because its available to me and because I choose to decide what I want to do with the game for myself.
Really its not a matter of what HiTech gives us or says we should do. Its a matter of what you want to do.
The game was, is and always will be what you make of it.
And NO.... I'm not sticking up for the furballers, the tool shed killers, the Ack dweebs, or the GV dweebs.
I'm simply stating that you are free to do with the game what you want.
Adding more guns, more fighters, more bombers, different sights, different bullets wont change that.
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<<>>
:rofl :rofl
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Originally posted by MANDO
Grizzly, didnt have you flaks and M16 to deffend your base from the ground? Didnt have you planes to set up deffensive CAPs? Can't you take off from another base and go to deffend the attacked one?
Are you one of these quakers that only want to jump inmediately into a gun and start killing risking nothing (even no time) and ruinning, without any effort, the fun of people that, at least, spent several minutes flying to your base?
The flak and m16 would be just fine if they were available. As it is it's so easy to take out the VHs one bomber flying over at 30K can take them out with near 100% accuracy. It's rare to see one miss. The field guns are almost worthless. Upping a mass of fighters would be fine if a mass of pilots was available.
How many times have we had a really great battle over some base, hanging on to a base by our fingernails until the hangers come up. Aerial fights filling the skies as the enemy are constantly driven off. How many times have my countrymen heard me compliment them on a great defense. This to me is great fun, and I'm not afraid to fight.
The problem is the massive hordes that rip though the arena capturing bases with impunity. Don't try to tell me you haven't seen this happen, and don't try to tell me there is a defense against it. I'm arguing that this type of game play should not be encouraged by the official in arena capture objective. But if it must be that way, then give us the tools to defend our bases against it.
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Originally posted by me62
There is not one anti-aircraft gun, fixed or mobile that can touch
a high altitude bomber formation. The M-16's Osti's and the
player operated field guns work good against low flying planes
but high bombers, forget it, might just as well not fire. And I can't
recall the last time I saw the A/I puffy ack damage a bomber
formation.
Mike
BTMe62
Usually the bombers have a choice, to fly low so they can hit a target easier, or fly high and lose their bombing accuracy. How often have you seen a bomber at 20K miss the VH?
I add another issue, numbers disparity. The team with a lot of players is usually attacking, and the team with the least players is usually defending. So why bias the game against defense? AH is great but it's not perfect.
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If your country fails to deffend a base with GVs and planes, then you better switch to another base, there are a lot of them available most of the time, quite simple. And 30k buffs are the exception, not the norm.
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Grizz,
Why didnt you just say....
"I can't stand the hordes. The mindless endless Jabo runs that flatten bases with 10:1 odds and capture bases one after another all night." ....?
Because then' I'd understand your gripe.
Base taking has become the norm. That along with stats and getting a kill are the only things that many players seem to care about. It can be seen on a regular basis. An La7 or 190 or a 51, whatever, comes flying through a base, down the runway at top speed, almost compressed, vulches the first thing that he sees on the runway and speeds off until out of sight. Only to return minutes later to do the same thing all over again. But god forbid a fight ensues and someone dies... Right?
Understandably so... It is your Aces High virtual rank that pulls the chicks. Right? My point is I understand (I think) what you're trying to get at. Adding a 5" gun on a field wont solve this. It will simply bring more players into a horde, with more bombs, to flatten another object at another base.
There are still players in the game who play for the fight. Win or lose they are there to fight. Not just kill... I think for many of these players the actual kill is secondary to the fight itself. It is for me anyways. Sure its cool or neat to land a whole big bag of kills but its far more enjoyable to fight at the same time.
The only thing you can do is just play your game. And if the tool sheders get in the way, kill them too.
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I r Teh Whinner
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Originally posted by Grizzly
You have a great game, but I wonder about a few things.
You created a game with the objective of capturing bases. And to facilitate this you have provided limited means to defend these bases. It's difficult to hit anything with the anti-aircraft guns, which seem to suffer greatly from lag, so they become less affective with more action. You dummied up the bombers now so once again they have pinpoint accuracy from great altitudes. And arial defence is often futile because the enemy will eventually attack in massive force to overcome any ability to stop them.
The worse part, which I'm sure is aggravated by your reward for arena capture, is that the most affective means of capturing bases is to avoid or overcome enemy resistance. In real life this would be terrific, but in a game where the fun is fighting each other, this land grab mania is counter productive. After all, if you want a land grab game with little or no defensive capability, why not just design a land grab race game? Oh wait... you did.
I started online flight sims with AW4W, which was derived from the DOS version of AW. The numbers of the players were low and we were charged by the minute of the duration that we were logged on. It wasn't even the start of Internet at that time. We had to dial-up to Compuserve directly then log on. You can imagine how much we paid for the services back then...
anyway... I agree with Grizzly on this, especially during the hours when the number of players are low in the MA.
I think that the original concept of the map reset or let's term it "winning the war" was designed as an added bonus when AH had its beginnings. Back then the numbers in the MA was low and reset rarely happened. So, what did the players do then? Some wanted to fly for themselves, or some wanted to capture a base anyway, or some wanted to enjoy a furball, or fly in pairs or threes, etc etc etc... when the conditions are right, people got together to "win the war".
Now that we have more players in the MA, conditions have become different, the objective that people have have skewed towards mostly to "win the war". This is not to say that we cannot find furballs at all or cannot find good dog fights. However, it is distracting that "winning the war" seems to be the only objective today. This is the reason why the big maps were introduced in the first place, making it more... shall we say... challenging than it was on the small maps where a horde can over run a smaller country with relative ease.
This is the basis of the discussion and suggestions to make things otherwise should be based on this premesis rather than just say "it's a bad idea".
Originally posted by Grizzly
I humbly suggest you drop the arena capture initative and let the players set their own game objectives. I can have more fun fighting all night over a single base than swarming across the map grabbing bases by the dozen. Heck, players may as well capture bases offline if they don't want to fight for them. The advantage of online multiplayer games is that the players can provide the opposition, objectives and tactics. By providing the objective you are artificially limiting the game. Base capture is fine, but arena annihilation is simply disruptive.
I agree and I would suggest either a FighterTown as we saw it in the BigPac on AW where three bases (one base from each country was not capturable and if I remember correctly not destructible) or make only the bases in the center capturable as we saw it in AW4W or AW1.
Originally posted by Grizzly
I suggest you provide manned flak at the bases, similar to the 5" ship guns.
I think making parts of the map with indestrutible bases is more the solution than providing manned acks.
Originally posted by Grizzly
I suggest you make the bombers less accurate with altitude with bomb divergence. You don't have to make them go through the hastle of calibrating their bomb sights... just make the accuracy irratic, like it's supposed to be. The way it is now, they can hit pin point targets from 20K, but I can barely hit a fighter flying directly at my field gun.
Simulating inaccuracy by randomization is not what I would go for, because it would making the game not so fun for the bomber pilots. We play this game because we can get better as we practice. Randomization will kill this incentive. Rather, I would like to see more wind layers in the MA, where the bombardier will need to take into account.
Originally posted by Grizzly
The idea is competition. I like the competition of fighting over bases... but what we have is a competition in capturing bases the fastest.
I agree with this one...
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Nothing pleases me more than ruining a rank potatos' day. Picking him out of the crowd and imagining the sqeeling going on on his country's local vox always brings a smile to my face.
I log on to fight other people, and I'm not talking about furballing. If you only want to fight inanimate objects and run from every person you come across, this is not the game for you.
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Originally posted by FDutchmn
I started online flight sims with AW4W, which was derived from the DOS version of AW. The numbers of the players were low and we were charged by the minute of the duration that we were logged on. It wasn't even the start of Internet at that time. We had to dial-up to Compuserve directly then log on. You can imagine how much we paid for the services back then...
Hiyas FD, nice seeing you're still around =o)
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People like defending bases in mannable guns because it doesn't effect their score when they die.
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Originally posted by Stang
I log on to fight other people, and I'm not talking about furballing. If you only want to fight inanimate objects and run from every person you come across, this is not the game for you.
Well I'm out:(
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Finish him, it is absolutly no hope...
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manned 88mm/base, would be nice,
The AA defence on the bases sux, good for high speed vulchers,
The 37mm fp or field gun kills only direct hit not proxi, and is ridiculos hard to hit planes at 200 yards, those auto 88s are useles , just drop the fps
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Clouds
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Originally posted by Morpheus
Grizz,
Why didnt you just say....
"I can't stand the hordes. The mindless endless Jabo runs that flatten bases with 10:1 odds and capture bases one after another all night." ....?
Because then' I'd understand your gripe.
Base taking has become the norm. That along with stats and getting a kill are the only things that many players seem to care about. It can be seen on a regular basis. An La7 or 190 or a 51, whatever, comes flying through a base, down the runway at top speed, almost compressed, vulches the first thing that he sees on the runway and speeds off until out of sight. Only to return minutes later to do the same thing all over again. But god forbid a fight ensues and someone dies... Right?
Understandably so... It is your Aces High virtual rank that pulls the chicks. Right? My point is I understand (I think) what you're trying to get at. Adding a 5" gun on a field wont solve this. It will simply bring more players into a horde, with more bombs, to flatten another object at another base.
There are still players in the game who play for the fight. Win or lose they are there to fight. Not just kill... I think for many of these players the actual kill is secondary to the fight itself. It is for me anyways. Sure its cool or neat to land a whole big bag of kills but its far more enjoyable to fight at the same time.
The only thing you can do is just play your game. And if the tool sheders get in the way, kill them too.
I just dont thnk there's anything more to say.
:aok
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Round and round and round they go,where they will stop nobody knows.
Althought I usually tend to avoid being part of a horde I enjoy all aspects of the game depending on my mood at the moment.
The game is about whatever you, the individual wants it to be about. Not what anyone here TELLS you its about.
They play the game their way. you play the game yours.
That being said. the feild/base defence setup is a bit,odd.
In some cases its actually easier for an enemy to get to a town then it is for the feild thats supposed to protect it.
Town ack seems to no longer fire on aircraft.
I also think each feild should have more then one VH, Perhaps two. One at the feild and one very near the town.
also I'd like to see the amount of puffy ack doubled and become more accurate based on the size of the hor,,,err I mean formations flying near it.
would stand to reason the more enemy planes in the area, the more likely it woud be some of them get hit
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Replace the town acks with manable 40 mm's
DmdMax
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:rolleyes:
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
snip
....would stand to reason the more enemy planes in the area, the more likely it woud be some of them get hit
Now THIS seems realistic, effective, reasonable, and easily done. Might make a nice, simple balance tweak -- the more planes in range of an ack gun, the higher chance that a randomly selected one would be hit.
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HTC dumbed down buff accuracy??
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Originally posted by Tumor
HTC dumbed down buff accuracy??
No; buff drivers....
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Shows you how long it's been since I flew bombers above 10K. I thought above 10k ya still had to figure in windage. Used to be that way, is it not anymore??