Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: mars01 on August 15, 2005, 03:35:27 PM
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Frac makers please move some bases closer together. This map has some good ideas but completely blows due to the long distances of the bases.
Please move the fields closer together. I exhausted 100% fuel in a spit and only saw two cons the whole time. Friggn sux.
I ended up loggin off to do something more fun than watching paint dry.
Whine off. lol
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What, you mean the bases are more than 3½ minutes apart? The sound of the siren at one field cannot be heard at the next field? :lol <-LOL-H
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Bring back pizza !!!!!!! way far the best mep ever made.
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I also liked the pizza - always something going on somewhere if you didn't wanna fly with or against the horde!!!
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Originally posted by mars01
Frac makers please move some bases closer together. This map has some good ideas but completely blows due to the long distances of the bases.
Please move the fields closer together. I exhausted 100% fuel in a spit and only saw two cons the whole time. Friggn sux.
I ended up loggin off to do something more fun than watching paint dry.
Whine off. lol
I'm sure we'll be seeing one of your maps in the future then?
ack-ack
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Frac3 without a doubt brings out the most "I hate this map" comments from people when it first loads up.
Reasons why I don't like it:
All bases are between 0.0 and 1K in altitude
Most bases are too distant to form a good fight
Those few bases which are near only breed furballs
Some towns are 10 or more miles away from the base
Right now I would prefer to have this map removed from the rotation if it is going to stay in its current state. Nothing against the person who spent the time to design it, I know making maps is by no means easy. But not everything everybody does can turn out to be fun. While I am without a doubt there are people who like Frac3, I have yet to hear from one.
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Originally posted by sullie363
Frac3 without a doubt brings out the most "I hate this map" comments from people when it first loads up.
Reasons why I don't like it:
All bases are between 0.0 and 1K in altitude
Most bases are too distant to form a good fight
Those few bases which are near only breed furballs
Some towns are 10 or more miles away from the base
Right now I would prefer to have this map removed from the rotation if it is going to stay in its current state. Nothing against the person who spent the time to design it, I know making maps is by no means easy. But not everything everybody does can turn out to be fun. While I am without a doubt there are people who like Frac3, I have yet to hear from one.
I like it..
Now you cant say you havent heard form one anymore:)
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I'm sure we'll be seeing one of your maps in the future then?
ack-ack
Hold your breath for that one.
Fester showed everyone how to make a map that is playable for everyone then out comes a map that has the fast paced action of a snail race.
Wake me when it's over.
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So I guess the perfect map is -
Fields where runways touch other.
Already at 25k to save having to climb.
:lol
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If every terrain was laid out the same, there really would be no point in rotating terrains around.
Truth is, no one terrain is going to satisfy all players. It cannot happen and it will not happen.
Terrains allow every player a different oppertunity to find another way to have fun in the game. For some players a terrain will automatically be fun, while for others, it can be frustrating to find that handle.
It is pretty much a given some people will find change to be fun and challenging, while others will fight it, human nature being what it is.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
If every terrain was laid out the same, there really would be no point in rotating terrains around.
Truth is, no one terrain is going to satisfy all players. It cannot happen and it will not happen.
Terrains allow every player a different oppertunity to find another way to have fun in the game. For some players a terrain will automatically be fun, while for others, it can be frustrating to find that handle.
It is pretty much a given some people will find change to be fun and challenging, while others will fight it, human nature being what it is.
HOW DARE YOU insert common sense into this discussion.
Party Pooper.
Is HiTech doing your spell checking again?
:D
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How about having a map making contest once in a while to spice up the mix? The same old same old again and again sure isn't helping things much. Let folks submit maps and maybe vote one off once a month and put the new one on.
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What do you expect at 7:30am Virgil? I was still making the coffee. :)
Rabbid, anyone can submit a terrain. Most of the terrains in the Main Arena are player made. If you really think you have an idea for a terrain, but cannot build it, for whatever reason, then try hitting up the "Terrain Forum" and ask for some help.
You never know.
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What I'm saying is have a vote once a month with the map getting the most votes being booted from the lineup. It could then be replaced with a new map. You folks would get plenty of submissions if you ran a once a month contest or if folks knew there was some sort of process. this keeps the maps fresh and cuts down a bit on the gripes of the same old same old.
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I don't know how many submissions you'd get every month. From what I understand, maps take a lot of work and a whole lot of time to create. If people were spending weeks working on a map, they wouldn't have much time to play.
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All you would need is one to keep even... offer up a free month or so of service for an map that makes rotation. You increase customer involvement and offload mapmaking work in one swoop.
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Originally posted by Kev367th
So I guess the perfect map is -
Fields where runways touch other.
Already at 25k to save having to climb.
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/lmao.gif)
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See Rule #4
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See Rule #4
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mars, there are as many complaints about festerma as there are for any other terrain. And if you want to discuss this, I have no problem with that, but you can stop with the personal insults at any time as they do not lend anything to the conversation.
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Originally posted by mars01
See Rule #4
You miss hte point.
VARIETY is the spice of life.
All maps the same? BOOO-RING.
All maps designed with the same spacing criteria? SEE ABOVE.
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
Is HiTech doing your spell checking again?:D
The man gets no respect, I tell ya.:lol
edit: Oh, wait, I didn't see th cheesy grin, so that makes it OK.
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Sorry skuzzy but where was the insult?
Field spacing is not a map distingusher. You have to space fields on every map. Field spacing has a direct affect on gameplay. IF you are trying to say some maps stiffel some forms of gameplay and that is your variety then that is just wrong.
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So I guess the perfect map is -
Fields where runways touch other.
Already at 25k to save having to climb.
You delete my ribbing back to him, but you dont see the insult to me with his comment. Fair is fair Skuzzy.
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the perfect map is a bigger version of NdIsles with hell of a lot more CV's
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Originally posted by Furball
the perfect map is a bigger version of NdIsles with hell of a lot more CV's
isn't that called ozkansas? ;)
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Everyone has thier own idea of what the perfect terrain is and that is fine. My guess is, and it is a guess, everyone in the game has a terrain they like and, at least, one they dislike tremendously.
Mars, I never said a word about stifling anything. I do not think I could be clearer on what I said. And just FYI. You started this thread with 'pizzacrap'. It might surprise you to know it is the most requested map to be put back into rotation.
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Yea, not liking this map to much. Field are much to far apart... have 50-75 mile flights between some.
Hope it gets reset soon, only "action" I could find was against the rooks, so I was bored for about 20 minutes before 4 of them finally grew one pair of balls and got me.
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I like all the maps, except one. And that one is Trinity. I like it at first but then I get sick of it as it stays too long for my taste.
The other map I didnt care for was pizza. Its why I left the game a couple years or so ago. It was always up it seemed. I think it had something to do with the lack of water and all that brown/tan everywhere. Is it possible to mix in the brown with areas of the green we have in maps now? BTW hearing that pizza was out of circulation, I decided to come back to AH. That and WW2OL sucked.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
[B It might surprise you to know it is the most requested map to be put back into rotation. [/B]
Isn't it the ONLY map to be permanently removed from the rotation? That would explain why it's the most requested to be returned, it's the only one.
Pizza map had a few problems, individually maybe not map-breaking, but combined made for a generally miserable experience, especially for a fighter jock.
1) The color and pattern, if you aren't epileptic, you will be soon flying close to the ground on pizza map.
2) The bases are generally very far apart.
3) There were not enough CV's and not enough water for those that there were to operate in anything but in a predictable, canal-like path.
4) There were far too many fields, much like Trinity, the fields outnumber the players most of the time. This meant no real concentrations of force aka, no furballs. There was no incentive for those concered with land-grab to actually fight for or contest control of any given field. Much simpler to just move elsewhere as it is impossible to defend all of the fields.
5) The GV aspect was as or more important than the air combat aspect in every repspect, even land grabbing, furthermore the GV portion was strangely seperated from the air combat portion. Most GV bases only spawned to other GV bases for example.
There were some good ideas with pizza map. For example it is one of the few and maybe the only map that did not have a 'reset corner'.That is largely owed to its perfect geometric shape and mirror image field placements. The canyons were fun to some extent, although insanely deep, usually a 'get out of jail free card' for runners. It did use varying field altitudes to really add a nice 3 dimensional aspect to the fields. Like FeserMA the high fields became prized as they gave your team an automatic 'jump' on the competition altitude wise in its area.
But, for the most part, unless you are playing Aces HIGH for the GV game or you enjoy easy field captures it's an example of a map that pleased fewer than it accomodated. While I agree with Skuzzy that it is difficult for a map to please everyone all the time, I think you can get pretty close. FesterMA is the closest I've seen yet.
I've been looking into map design and may try one myself to see if it is in fact possible to please everyone all the time. One thing is guarenteed, it won't be brown, speckled terrain. ;)
Zazen
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Mars01 - you seem to think you have a pretty good handle on what does and what doesn't constitute a good terrain. Pony up and show us - build one.
originally posted by Zazen13
Isn't it the ONLY map to be permanently removed from the rotation? That would explain why it's the most requested to be returned, it's the only one.
:eek: :rolleyes:
asw
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Nope Zazen. It was being requested long before the other terrains were converted.
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This map (Frac) encourages fights like an Amish Minister!
With that off my chest, I agree with Mars completely... the distance between fields is the #1 problem with it.
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So when will pizza be here....?
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The best overall game play map was Pizza
You could find big furballs, do sneaky steals, great gv fights and could always find 1v1's if that was your mood.
I will say the yellow was tuff on the eye's
shamus
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One thing generally about the HUGE maps. It isn't necessarily bad for there to be 200-300+ bases...so long as the arena population is proportionally high. Trinity map for example might be great if we averaged 300-500 people in the arena and peaked at 600-900+ people during prime-time. I am sure that is what HTC is hoping for for the future and these maps were designed with the hopefull future of AH II in mind.
The problem is, while we have these forward-looking maps and insufficient population to play on them gameplay suffers and the game actually grows slower than it might have if we remained on the smaller maps where there is alot more action for the newer players to immerse themselves in. Your average new player wants to furball, not milkrun or sit for hours spawncamping GV's. Alot of furballs and fights in general is the appeal of AH, its strength and what sets it apart from its competition (IL2 currently) is allowing hundreds of people to play and fight against each other simultaneously. HUGE maps too large for the current population take away from AH's one big strength vs. it's competition and its great appeal to new players. Appealing to new players is the only way for AH to grow.
Zazen
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3yrs of AH and i could never understand the "I hate this map" quote...I do now. Frac3 I have to change Icon colours. That bloody great big, depending how zoomed in u r, red line is a pain. The clip map colour is a lighter shade to actual terrain and the GV way points can blend in. As for 2 cv's in a pond.... what else did the Romans do for us.
Sorry to the guy that spent time and energy on it. You have my utter respect for having a go. It's way more than i could do. I do like the off field town concept just a shame alot of players STILL don't get it
As for pizza map I thought it was a great map apart from the Gv way points that didn't spawn u to the right place and some of the Gv rocky terrain was a pain. Wish someone, other than me, could re-do-it.
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This map is a pain because like "Eternity" ther is no fight and very long distances !
I pay to have fun not to look like a Microsoft Airliner Pilot wanabe doing miles of navigation.
one word : boring.
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This map truely blows. End of story.
I thought at the start that having the towns placed 10-15 miles away from a base would be a good idea and bring some sort of a new tactic of base taking into the game. Not really though.
The bases are set, in a way that looks like where ever the hell they felt like putting them. Some here, some there, the one WAAY out in the middle of no mans land.
The map is ok if you have 900 players on. But then HTC's servers wont be Ok when they're on fire from the loads.
to the map makers. I know how hard it is to make a map. I've done a few, never submited them. This one shouldnt have been let through the door though.
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I must put in my $.02 :)
Certainly this map is at the bottom of my list of the maps. Too long a flight to find a fight is at best boring.
I would vote that we put some kind of limit on how long this map stays Like say only 24 hours before an automatic reset?
It has some playability to it. But I think the overall reason I play in the MA is to find fights, and find them in a reasonable amount of time. I ran out of fuel twice last night because by the time I finally found a fight, and stayed for a kill, I didn't have enough fuel to RTB. And that was in a 109F4, 75% fuel and drop tanks. I crashed once trying to ditch. The other time I found a road to ditch on. The terrain seems way to rough to find a place to ditch without kee-rashing and dying.
Still, until we get more maps, we should keep this one for the sake of variety, but maybe not until someone can get a reset.
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For the record, I love Frac3.
I loved Pizza.
I love every map currently in the rotation.
I loved every map that we used previosly and has been removed from the rotation.
I love every map that is or ever will be made for this game in the future.
No map = can't play, so I love maps.
Don't let the map play you, play the map.
Guess what, we have 4+ arenas and the maps are different in each one :D
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not just the bases damn take for ever to get to your town to defend it noe missions to our towns sux cause you cant get there fast enough to defend it
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There are a few things that make AH appealing or less so to newer players and fighter jocks. Maps can and do make these things more or less likely to develop.
1) Flight times to the fight.
2) Intensity of the fight determined by two things.
a) Distance of the fields from one another.
b) Strategic import of the base (altitude, proximity to other bases, proximity to critical strategic targets like HQ)
3) The number and location of ports and CV TG's. The more the better as far as I am concerned. On certain maps the only good fights occur during the brief time a CV stays alive near an enemy base.
4) Vbases in relation to airbases. On some maps there's a 1 to 1 ratio, that's far too much focus on vehicles.
So, there are a few factors that make maps less appealing, therefore more boring to fighter jocks and newer players which rely on frequency and intensity of air to air fights and furballs for their enjoyment.
1) Relatively long distances between airfields (not airfields and vbases).
2) Bases all being at sea level. Higher altitude bases add strategic value.
3) Too few CV TG's for the land/sea area.
4) Too many Vbases and V spawns.
Obviously, some maps seem to have all the negative aspects and none or few of the positive aspects. Maps do affect gameplay very profoundly. Maps are what bring the furballer and the land-grabber hurtling at each other or in totally opposite directions. When the Furballer, GV'er and Land-grabber are all pulling in a myriad a directions because of map design that map becomes very boring and detrimental for gameplay. Some maps bring furballer/GV'er/land-grabber together in common goals for their different reasons, that makes for a very exciting and action packed map. Small maps are good at this because with only 60-75 fields relatively close together and/or alot of CV TG's per area common objectives for the 3 playstyles abound.
Pizza map was a great example of a map that did not bring the 3 play-types together. Furballers were pretty much left out unless a CV was close to a coastal base or one team was near another's HQ. Milkrunners had an infinite number of strats to milkrun and GV'ers had a virtually hermetically sealed off GV war. Pizza map was particularly appealing to GV'ers because, for the most part, they could just play with other GV'ers and not have to worry about aircraft, it was like one gigantic inter-connected 'tank-town' (ie: the canyon vbases and the rim vbases). This eipitomizes what makes a map boring for the majority of us. That is a map that takes the various playstyles and by its very deisgn hurtles them in diamterically opposed directions.
Zazen
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the best thing about pizza map that all others lack is the fronts.
all other maps each side has only two fronts wich leads to boreing game play,on pizza however you have three (slices ) in each slice you have three country,s bordering each other. this makes more opertunitys for spread out game play. if you took all the big maps and reworked them into the same style it would liven them up drasticly
my .02 cents :cool:
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Originally posted by cobia38
the best thing about pizza map that all others lack is the fronts.
all other maps each side has only two fronts wich leads to boreing game play,on pizza however you have three (slices ) in each slice you have three country,s bordering each other. this makes more opertunitys for spread out game play. if you took all the big maps and reworked them into the same style it would liven them up drasticly
my .02 cents :cool:
Have you looked at every large map fully zoomed out? They all have pie slice shapes with two fronts. Look at Trinity fully zoomed it, Pizza slices...
Zazen
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Pizza offered something for everybody.
There was never a problem finding a big fight. There are always points of intensity along any front so fighter jocks would be satisfied.
Very wide range of base altitude which provided numerous points of importance.
Excellent environment for bomber pilots whether they were milk running or hitting bases.
The best GV fights you could have.
Plentiful, although confined, CVs.
A very nice variety of bases spaced at normal distance, and then those requiring a longer flight. Such as the bases on the edges of the map.
The map allowed for smaller squads to take bases. Granted this was due to the towns being much smaller, but even an AHII Pizza would allow for small squad operations.
I never had a problem with the sand color, but that was a common complaint so maybe that would have to be modified some. But the desert terrain shouldn't be lost, enough with all these Pacific Northwest maps.
The map certainly survived in stalemate till the weekly reset more than it was reset by players but who cares. I had the most fun on the map and I am sorry we don't have it today.
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i just dont like the map we are on now i love trinity :aok
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Lets just put a stop to this nonsense right here, right now!!
I will contact HTC and discuss the possibility of putting me in charge of what maps are played and when.
You will then be able to pick ONE speaker from each country and notify me in writing what you would like to play next.
Depending on my mood and if I've had my coffee already I will take in under advisement and mull it over.
I can then contact HTC advising them on what map would be most enjoyed by me....errr I mean the community:D
See how easy that was. Now who's with me?
Thanks in advance
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I "heard" from someone who was planning on creating a map that HT said he could only have 1 field per sector. If that's true all maps will suck from this point on IMHO.
FesterMA is the best map by far. There is action for everyone and alot of it due to the way the fields are situated.
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Originally posted by DipStick
I "heard" from someone who was planning on creating a map that HT said he could only have 1 field per sector. If that's true all maps will suck from this point on IMHO.
FesterMA is the best map by far. There is action for everyone and alot of it due to the way the fields are situated.
One field per sector, and not only that, like it is on Frac, a Vbase can apparently be considered a field. So, there can be 2 or 3 sectors between fields. They may as well just remove early war planes from the set, it will take most of them an hour and most of their fuel load to get to the fight, let alone back home if they manage to survive.
Zazen
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That is a general guideline DipStick. Dunt read more into it than that. All terrains for the MA have a general guideline.
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Originally posted by rabbidrabbit
All you would need is one to keep even... offer up a free month or so of service for an map that makes rotation. You increase customer involvement and offload mapmaking work in one swoop.
:aok
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That is a general guideline DipStick. Dunt read more into it than that. All terrains for the MA have a general guideline.
Oh thank god skuzzy I was just about to cancel my account, if we were doomed to bases always being a sector or more apart.
I still don't see what was so abusive that you deleted my other posts but it's a dead horse so I'll let it lie.
For those that want me to pony up and build a map, I am sorry I just don't have the time. But that doesn't stop me from being able to see when there is a problem with the maps we have.
I think as a community we benefit when people speak up about things that are not working. As I said a few times and still which has not been addressed, is that base spacing should not be a factor that make maps different from other maps. I could care less about the terrain. I am addressing spacing. I don't know why you addressed terrain Skuzzy, but again the terrain is not the issue the base spacing is. Nor am I saying all the bases have to be laid out like Fester. Frac would work if they added some more fields and made them less than a sector apart in some areas.
Close bases fosters more combat, better defence and shorter trips back to the fight.
Far bases foster longer flights, less fighting and slower action.
With that said, I beleive Fester has showed all of us, with both his maps, that a nice balance between close fields and less close fields gives way to alot of action and the majority of the players are able to find something they like.
When the fields are a sector or more apart it takes too long to get back to the action which stifels the large heated battles. Also when the MA population is low the fights are few and far between.
AS for Pizza, furballs were almost non existant. The only large fights were big hordes going after undefended bases. I dred the day that map ever makes it back in the rotation.
Also Skuzzy, how many of your complaints about FersterMA have to do with field spacing and lack of playablity for people? I know there are a lot that deal with lag and that is a side affect of closer fields but a different problem.
BTW Skuzzy, I am not trying to be a jerk to you and I appreciate the time and answers you give to us as a community.
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Yeah the problem has nothing to do with the look of the map. The biggest problem is the spacing of the bases.
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This is going on a tangeant, but what was the map we had in AH1.99betawhatever, fairly early on with rolling hills and valleys? It was mostly green, and totally unlike any of the terrains we have now. I believe I'd heard it was a beta only map, and too small for the numbers in the MA you were hoping for. The only other details I can recall are that it was up for some sort of testing, and had Airshow Smoke enabled, and free 262s.
Anyhow, I loved that map. It was beautiful, atypical terrain, and I tend to think a larger modified version would be a great addition, and presumably would have a great deal of the work already begun.
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Pizza! yummm! Always found a good time no matter what I felt like doing