Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Kazaa on June 23, 2010, 06:52:43 AM
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needs work?
I feel that the strats in Aces High should be a hive of action. Currently they're to far behind enemy lines and disapear when you take a base close enough in range to assult them from.
/discuss.
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http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,291312.0.html
Way ahead of you...
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I know about the other thread, I even posted in it. I feel that the system fails so badly that the topic requires reinforcing with a second of its kind.
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I said it in the other thread. Whatever the system ends up being, it has to be undeniably valuable enough for one side to vehemently defend against it being attacked, and the other side to attempt to attack & destroy it, depriving the invaded country of something immediately valuable. Beyond this concept I have no clue. I do know that it would create one hell of a fight.
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This is what, the third or fourth change in the strat system? Each one has had it's good and bad points. Although I did prefer the separated strats, the cluster has led to some fun bomber beat downs.
I'd offer my opinion on the perfect strat system, but I really can't come up with one.
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I find your use of /discuss to be incorrect. Other than that I'll let you guise hammer out all the details.
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I'd offer my opinion on the perfect strat system, but I really can't come up with one.
I have and I posted it in that other thread :neener: ;)
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Attach ENY to the factory system! As factories are reduced the ENY of all rides is lowered even to the point of having to spend perks to fly any ride :aok
If peeps have to pay perks to fly "less than optimum" rides, they will defend that factory next time :aok
Or just make spit, pony, LA7 etc. factories
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Attach ENY to the factory system! As factories are reduced the ENY of all rides is lowered even to the point of having to spend perks to fly any ride :aok
If peeps have to pay perks to fly "less than optimum" rides, they will defend that factory next time :aok
Or just make spit, pony, LA7 etc. factories
Nothing of that will ever happen - for good reasons :)
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Agreed Kazaa
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I think a different approach might be needed in order to make the strats system a more meaningful part of the game.
Instead of a "harm the other country" approach, which I think leads to unbalanced game-play. I would propose a "help the attacker" approach, that would have less of an effect if the attacker was "steamrolling" the other sides.
For example lets assume the following;
Country A owns 75% of it's own bases
Country B owns 100% of ti's own bases
Country C owns 100% of it's own bases and 25% of Country A's bases
I would propose that for each 10% of Country C's City that gets destroyed by Country A. Country A gets the benefit of their airfield town downtime is reduced by 1 minute. So if Country A destroys 50% of Country C's city then the Country A town would rebuild in 10 minutes versus 15 minutes. This makes it harder for Country C to capture Country A's airfields.
This type of benefit would only apply to the default bases that a country owns, not to bases that have been captured. This way the strat system can still have a viable impact on the game, but not so much that it creates an unbalanced arena.
There are many more examples for each type of strat factory.
The important point, is to change the way the strat damage rewards the effort (of attacking the stats), without creating an unbalanced effect on game-play.
:salute Baumer
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I always liked the idea of tying the strat system to ENY.
The higher the ENY, the longer things stay down and the faster the other countries pop back.
So if one country has an ENY of 30 (for example) their Hangers (or ack, or ord, or dar, or town blds, etc) stay down for 30 min and the other countries stay down for 10.
(random numbers plugged in there just to illustrate idea)
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Here is my idea:
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,291464.0.html (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,291464.0.html)
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One issue with Jayhawks' idea is limitations of the current resupply system.
This is an area that I think needs attention, how can the resupply lines work better. For example the roads/rail-lines/and barge paths, are limited by the 10 minute resupply time. no matter how long you make the route the vehicle will travel fast enough to get to the base in 10 minutes. So if you make the train route long enough, you can have trains going 300 mph, this really limits what you can do with them. I think the vehicles should have an upper speed limit that's historically correct, and allow for multiple trains on the path at the same time. Then give the terrain editor a time limit first resupply vehicle, so it must arrive within 30 minutes (after the initial 30 minute delay, a train/barge/truck would arrive every 10 minutes).
So here are some example speeds,
Trucks- limited to 25 mph, and a range of 12.5 miles
Trains- limited to 35 mph, and a range of 17.5 miles
Barges- limited to 15 mph, and a range of 7.5 miles (yes I know this speed is a bit high historically, but it needs to balance the max resupply time of 30 minutes)
So these are longer routes at realistic speeds and it would only delay resupply in the first 30 minutes that an arena is loaded. After the initial 30 minutes, the resupply would arrive every 10 minutes like it does now.
I suspect this would take some major changes, and may not be feasible with the current resupply system, but it's a step to making the strats and resupply system, better targets.
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It's not only the range. Actually I was glad about more rearward located strats, because that would make for some missions really different from the quick smash & grab or furballing stuff. In some ways, it's like being able to have a mini-scenario inside the MA.
The main problem is: It's not "worth" it. If you fly for your chesspiece country, there are much more rewarding ways to support your noble cause, if you keep an eye on your score & perks, it's much easier to milk a few remote towns from 25K, instead of traveling to a distant, extremely well-protected target.
I always grin when I read "they just do it for score" when a major strat raid is on the way, because from a score & rank point of view, it's about the worst mission you can do ;)
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Keep the mega strats that we have now, just add smaller individual strats (like the old ones) that would account for around 25% of the total damage for that strat. Just an idea, but it seems like that may fix it.
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The war cannot be won unless strats are under a certain level. A sudden incentive to attack strats.
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I am sure The SnailMan , Jäger des Bombers, would probably agree with the following statement.....
;)
Quite honestly, I miss milk runners early in the morning, or early afternoon in Germany. And they won't ever be back the way it is now.
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The war cannot be won unless strats are under a certain level. A sudden incentive to attack strats.
Good call.
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It's not only the range. Actually I was glad about more rearward located strats, because that would make for some missions really different from the quick smash & grab or furballing stuff. In some ways, it's like being able to have a mini-scenario inside the MA.
The main problem is: It's not "worth" it. If you fly for your chesspiece country, there are much more rewarding ways to support your noble cause, if you keep an eye on your score & perks, it's much easier to milk a few remote towns from 25K, instead of traveling to a distant, extremely well-protected target.
I always grin when I read "they just do it for score" when a major strat raid is on the way, because from a score & rank point of view, it's about the worst mission you can do ;)
100% right...up a formation of lancs, get some alt bomb a town and some hangers 11,000 damage points and have a 75% chance of making it home in about 20 minutes. Hit strat, fly 2 hours get 5000 damage points and not make it home. Strat run are not milk runs by no means with Snailman around :salute
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Or inverse that, YOU cannot win the war unless YOUR strats are ABOVE a certain level. I guess you could make both a requirement, just ideas.
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I think the main issue with the strat system is that they dont have a big enough impact when they are destroyed. We should make it more valuable, as an incentive for their countries to defend it. Here are my ideas:
1. All strat objects will take 24 hours before they are "repaired". So if the Ammo factory is completely destroyed, or parts of it, it will take 24 hours for each individual building to pop back up.
2. If Ammo factory is completely destroyed, then ammo/ords at ALL bases belonging to their respective county will be shutdown. When the Ammo factory is back up to, say 90%, the Ammo/ords at the bases will be available. This would also apply to Troops, Fuel Refineries, Radar, and Industry.
3. The damaged factories will share the same ratio of available services at each base. Like this:
A. Ammo factory is down to 25%. Therefore only 25% of ords will be available to the bases. 75% of ammo bunkers at bases will be destroyed and be visibly smoking.
B. Since 75% of those ammo bunkers are destroyed at each base, the opposing team will have fewer ammo bunkers to destroy in order to completely disable ords at that particular field.
C. So in essence - 25% Ammo Factory means 25% ords available for each base that the particular country holds.
4. So what would happen if the Fuel Refinery were to be hit? Well because we want combat, the Fuel Refinery wont have such a harsh penalty like Ammo or Troops. So this is my thought:
A. Fuel factory is down to 0%.
B. All fuel bunkers at the bases will be down to 50%. Thus, only 50% fuel can be loaded in each plane at all bases the country owns.
C. But if the opposing team drops the last half of the fuel bunkers at a particular base, then pilots can only load 25% fuel in their planes at that particular airfield.
5. And Radar?
A. Radar factory must be completely destroyed before Radar at each base is down.
B. So in this case, Radar will be down for about 24 hours until the Radar factory is at least 90% status.
Just food for thought. IMO, the strats are just not valuable enough to be worth flying all that time and destroying it. Make it more valuable and worth defending. Then we will see the glorious high alt combat that some of us have been screaming for all this time.
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I think the main issue with the strat system is that they dont have a big enough impact when they are destroyed. We should make it more valuable, as an incentive for their countries to defend it. Here are my ideas:
1. All strat objects will take 24 hours before they are "repaired". So if the Ammo factory is completely destroyed, or parts of it, it will take 24 hours for each individual building to pop back up.
2. If Ammo factory is completely destroyed, then ammo/ords at ALL bases belonging to their respective county will be shutdown. When the Ammo factory is back up to, say 90%, the Ammo/ords at the bases will be available. This would also apply to Troops, Fuel Refineries, Radar, and Industry.
Now that is way overscaled. Way too much effect. At one point, most probably at off peaktimes where the numerical disparity between the countries can be quite great, the smallest one, already pushed back towards it's strat will suddenly get strat horded and the ammo factories will go down. And now that very country shall lose the ability to drop bombs (on CVs for example) for a whole 24 hours?
That's taking the effect way too far.
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Personally I would like to see convoys at see headed for resupply of fuel and ammo on Task Groups. Those buggers should be auto guns out the wazzooo just to make them damn near impossible to sink without massive amounts of air units coming in on them.
I don't think the strats should be effected for 24 hours but for some amount of time...1-2 hours which is more than sufficient for supplies to reach them from other smaller strats to help rebuild them. If the radar factory...stupid name btw...gets blasted it should only effect the part that the entire country can not see what is happening in other sectors but if your radar is still up on your base then you are able to see the contacts and dar bars in your area.
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Once you graduate Strat to the level of having a global time based effect in the MA on the availability of rides, ord, or any global resource then you change the MA game from a loose free for all to a three sided AvA War. You can us the HQ radar going down as an example of how interested most players are in having to spend time worrying about a strat that has an emidiate and global affect on their game play. Most of them don't care on country channel to hear about an HQ raid. Most of them don't show up to fly defence and most of them don't show up to fly resupply.
With the new radar, taking bases requires the focused efforts of up to 1/4 of a country's players depending on the numbers logged in. This could tie them up for hours if the timeing on the initial attack is disrupted by defenders. And without 500ft NOE that is a given now. So you throw into this the ability for strat to globaly castrate a country the way ENY does, and you have taken the role of suicide JABBO ord and troop porker trying to delay the afor mentioned multy hour base take attempt up a notch to suicide newbie bomber pilot greifing a whole nights game play for 20 or 30 customers.
When you ask for concentrated focal points that will affect every single player in a country on maps that already require an investment in time just to get to a fight, what kind of gameplay are you dictating to the customer who is not in love with large and complicated scenarios? Most people don't play chess or poker. In shoot-em-up games like this most people go to the MA to have an evening of quickly hopping into localised fights. Yes you do get a turn out for special events and FSO but, the players involved know it's a one time a week multy hour comitment then its over and they can go back to the MA.
Changing the entire game style so several players have the ability to affect a single country by the destruction of concentrated focal points then requires someone or a "BODY" to constantly monitor and work at directing the energies of the caotic country player base to defend these focal points. How many of you are going to reorganize your squads into permenant patrols to defend the strats? Do you see constant patrols defending the HQ from radar raids?
Since the most consistant large body of players that join together by either planning or by joining everyone going in the same direction is to take a single feild, the audience who's fun you seem to want to control without their permission has already voted on how they will use their time in the MA. They only see a picture as large as maybe six feilds inside of two sectors. Why? Thats about how far they are willing to fly for anything. It does not matter that they can hop to any feild with the click of a mouse. When you ask them to invest their TIME on the map it comes down to about two sectors.
At this time when they are not happy with a fight they have the option of picking some other two sector part of the map to play on. Destroyable Strat that will globally make the fight anywhere in their country equally crappy will either make most of them jump to another country or log off. Like the effect of JSO back in AH1 before HiTech introduced ENY. Most players are not paying to play in a shoot-em-up from a 50,000ft perspective like the uber startegy guys in this thread. The idea of destroyable strat effecting an area should be reduced to the attention span and perspective of the average player. About four square sectors.
Players don't come to the MA so the fun police can shut down large parts of their country for the night. Supposidly the AvA is for that if you hanker to fly patrol and stop the evil fun police raids. How many players do you see in the AvA vs.the MA even with the MA's supposidly crappy strat system now?
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The war cannot be won unless strats are under a certain level. A sudden incentive to attack strats.
This has Merritt :aok & as a side affect it may also limit the NOE mission mind set. Then throw in a 10 fold increase on perk rewards for strat runs & all the newbies will be running bombers non stop just to get the perks to fly a jet.
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The war cannot be won unless strats are under a certain level. A sudden incentive to attack strats.
This would work. Factory targets as a condition of winning a war. This makes them valuable to attack, defend, resupply, and generally(dare I say it?) fight over.
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I still think AW had the right idea on the strat front with the spit factory.
You tie a factory to certain popular planes And you WILL see people upping to defend it.
This actually worked there
If downed for a nominal period of time like 20 min. You arent totally removing anyones crutch for very long
The problem with strat is that that then HQ and the radar. Attacking them serves no meaningful purpose. No real reason to attack them. Likewise there is no meaningful reason to defend them.
Likewise if you damaged/destroyed the maint at a feild. there was a chance that the plane you upped from that feild might not be 100% in perfect working order.
Add to strat targets railway stations / trucking depots which might effect resupply to bases say in 1/4 speed of resupply increments. re-institute the "Zone" policy and place strats closer to the zone bases and more heavily defended with CV type puffy ack.
To discourage the milk runners. Make it so you have to capture all fields within a zone to gain complete control of a strat target. Yet have that same strat target still supply the bases within a zone regardless of who owns it. But perhaps at a reduced resupply rate if the base is owned by an unfriendly country this way if milkrunners take off from a nearby field they cant destroy the strat target without also hurting their own base because reducing a strat target would also reduce your own resupply time. Only moreso if you dont own all bases in a particular zone
Example.
Break zones down to areas of 4 bases to a zone.
Bases to the originating country will always be ressuplied the fastest. Bases owned by an opposing country would resupply at a slower rate untill it owned all 4 bases to that zone. A damaged strat targt would reduce the supply time to all bases within a zone. But to the invading country it would be reduced even further
If you own all 4 bases you have complete full speed resupply capability as if it were a home country strat. but once a base is recaptured in a specific zone. it reverts back to home country status and those rules would once again apply
Breaking it down to zones would also mean you can effect the strat on one part of the map while no compltely crippling a country. Only an area.
breaking it down to the example above provides a reason to defend or recapture bases. It would also discourage the milkrunner from easily padding his score
any of this making sense?
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DREDIOCK,
It's too simple and inellgantly logical, and because of that will work.
Your audience in this thread are not factoring your and my years of flying on HiTech's coad and what we have learned in almost 20 years of what the simple motivations of paying customers are to up and fight in these games. Your audience here wants to communicate their complex game fantasies to each other while competeing to show HiTech how intelectualy superior to each poster they are in the hopes he will be impressed and name a map after them. None of them are asking the KISS questions based on the motivations of the majority of players who fall in the center of the IQ Bell curve.
1. You have 2 hours max on average during peak time to hold the attention of 250-350 players who don't want to fly very far or high to play.
2. What motivates them to stay inside of on average a 4 square sector area and play for 2 hours?
3. Why is their focus so small with so many opportunities on such large maps?
4. Knowing the greif it will cause why do so few players take down the radar at the HQ?
5. Why do so many players not show up to defend or resupply the HQ?
6. Why are so many players not interested in long complex missions that emulate WW2?
7. Why was NOE large missions to isolated feilds so disruptive that HiTech changed how radar shows cons?
8. How can you make any strat contribute to game play by giving the short term rewards that even spending 4 hours trying to take a single base does for players?
9. The happiest players are the ones getting the most powerful short term reward feed back for their efforts.
10. The more complex the system the more prone to failure.....
Make taking a strat as important and rewarding as taking any feild in the game!