Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Lusche on February 12, 2011, 01:39:50 PM
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1. Introduction - Methods & Definitions
2. Arena Data
3. LWMA Plane Usage & K/Ds
4. Vehicles in LWMA
1. Introduction - Methods & Definitions
A few days late, but here it is: The AH Stats 2010. Not as detailed as I had planned, but I ran into some trouble, so I decided to publish the finished part now. I hope to be able of making some additions later.
First, two very important definitions:
Active Player - Every Pilot ID that had at least one kill or one death during a tour. We have several hundred ID's per tour without any kills or deaths, for the most part these a trial accounts that never manage to get their plane of the ground. I was not able to track those, nor do they play any role in the AH world.
Usage The sum of kills and death of a plane/GV as a rough measure of gameplay impact and... well, usage ;)
Numbers Format: In some tables the point "." is being used as a decimal mark, not the comma "," This is how it works over here... :old:
All data was compiled from public sources, namely the Stats & Score webpages. I do not guarantee for the correctness of my numbers or conclusion. Actually I would bet there are still some errors in it. I will try to correct them as the reports are coming in.
2. Arena Data
Where are the players spending their time?
Due to the difficulties I had tracking this for a whole year, first December 2010 as an example:
(http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1501/arenatimecomparisondec2.jpg)
All but DA & SEA numbers were taken directly form the player's scores. DA is a very loose estimation based purely on observing the login numbers during that month, I reckon actual number may differ up to 50% - but it's precise enough to get a rough ballpark number.
Similar goes for the SEA, it's a rough (and quite optimistic) estimation based on SEA logs, I hope to give a precise number at a later point.
Here now a closer look at the main arena activity index' :
(http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8170/lwactivity2010.jpg)
(http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3825/mwactivity2010.jpg)
(http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4645/ewactivity2010.jpg)
(http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8690/wwiactivity2010.jpg)
(http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2257/avaactivity2010.jpg)
You can note the tremendous impact the new towns had on EW arena, and how the numbers came back (not just in players but also in kills=combat!) after the 50%+flag rule was introduced. It's a prime example how changes in gameplay mechanism can impact population
behaviour.
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As the LW main arena is THE heart of AH activity (very few player do never fly there, and even the majority those who "are here just for special events" spend more time there than anywhere else), it may be interesting to take a look at it's Activity Index over the past years:
(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1903/lwactivityindex70132.jpg)
The big arena split happened in Tour 80. Score was split up in tour 93, removing EW & MW from chart above. The new towns appeared in tour 126, the off-hours arena format was introduced in tour 130, tour 131 saw the capture rules changed to 50%/white flag
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Now, that does actually happen in the three mains, EW, MW LW? What do the players do? I went and summed up all sorties, kills etc. by all players for all tours (almost 70,000 score sheets btw :x):
(http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/7299/mainarensorties2010.jpg)
The numbers are self explaining for the most part. For bombers, I arbitrarily set "mission"=2.5 sorties to account for the fact most bomber sorties are flown in formation mode. Time/mission is given in minutes. (yes, the average sortie duration is really that short)
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And finally.... base captures in Late War
(http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/1737/lwbasecaptures.jpg)
("by M3" should actually read: by GV, because course SdKfz and Jeeps are included there too)
This chart is based on all recorded base captures, that means all captures a player go credit for. You can see the big impact the changes in towns, capture rules and arena format had on the rate of base captures. a rate that had previously been quite steady for years.
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3. LWMA Plane Usage & K/Ds
This year I had planned to do the following analysis for all main arenas. Unfortunately I found some individuals/squads used the sparsely populated minor arenas for some fishy things, which massively skewed the plane/GV numbers (P-40B suddenly became the prime T-34 killer in EW :rolleyes:)
At first I tried to remove the biggest incongruities, but then I decided to drop those arenas entirely. You can thank those guys who think they have to perk farm by killing their ENY 5 plane flying squaddies 30 times in an ENY 30 ride... within a few minutes.
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LWMA Plane Usage
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3245/lwplaneusage2010.jpg)
Nothing really surprising this year. The P-51D still leads the field, this year by a comfortable margin. more notable is that the La-7 has finally made it's way back near the top, a place that it had lost for some time after it's remodelling.
Oh, and of course the Usage number isn't really working for the Ar 234 and Mossie 16, planes that are usually being flown in such a way that they do register neither kill or death.
Fighter Usage by airframe families
Often we do not discern the different sub models from each other when fighting in the MA. We just hear (&read) "lots of Jugs inbound", "nothing but Spits over there at A14" and so on. So do I now:
(http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8973/fughterframeslw2010.jpg)
Fighter K/D
(http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7615/fighterkdlw2010.jpg)
Another non-surprise: The Tempest is still king and the poor old P-40B is still at the bottom. And as usual, the perked Spit 14 is seeing it's perked brothers from far away only.
The two top non-perked rides are both examples how a small but dedicated group of pilots can influence the overall K/D, both planes are not being used much by the general AH populace.
All I see are dweeb planes.... or do I not?
(http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3964/fughterusagebyenylw2010.jpg)
Fighter usage by ENY, another pretty much self explaining chart.
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4. Vehicles in the LWMA
We already have seen how much of their time the AH players do spend in GVs. But which kind of vehicles do see the most action? Here is the Usage data for them:
(http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3671/gvusage2010.jpg)
With the introduction of three new tanks, some perk point adjustments and the elimination of a few very persistent & annoying bugs, the ground war has seen some significant change: Here is how the tank usage has changed:
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1749/tankusagelw2010.jpg)
The M4A3(76) has quickly become THE main tank of AH. In that context it's necessary to pint out that the bigger part of it's Usage share is made up of kills, while the Panzer's still big Usage share is mostly made up of deaths. The M4A3(76) was on it's way to become a very dominant factor on the battlefield when a tiny price tag of 1 perk did stop than development (I have to admit, I would had never expected a single perk point having such an impact)
The big "loser" is the Sherman VC, once the scare of the battlefield it's a rare sight nowadays. Higher perk price, fixing of the top armor bug the Tiger suffered from most and the new M4(76) and Panther are the reasons for this.
Tank Deaths
One of the most common complains in AH is about all that bombers ruining GV battles. In particular it's the Lancasters that carpet bomb spawns and are divebombing single tanks... at leats that's one may think by reading this BBS. But what does really kill tanks in AH?
I examined the cause of deaths for the two most used tanks, the M4(76) and the Panzer IV:
(http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5595/tankdeathslwma2010.jpg)
As you can see, only a minority of tanks are being killed by planes at all.
Top airborne tank killers
The top 20 airborne tank killers are:
(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/5773/topairtankkillerslwma20.jpg)
To get put things into perspective, only about 0.6% (!) of all Pz & M4(76) deaths in 2010 had been by Lancasters!
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That's it for now. Have I missed something? Something else necessary? I made an error? You tell me! :cheers:
:airplane:
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Awesome. And the synth-pop in your sig makes a great soundtrack to read that with.
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Nice Lusche!!!! :rock :rock :rock :rock
The only thing I would modify if you still can is the chart on plane usage. Pull back the Percentage Axis to 1-2% so we can see some more disparity between the usage in that graph.
Other than that superb job. Lots of great information in there.
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NThe only thing I would modify if you still can is the chart on plane usage. Pull back the Percentage Axis to 1-2% so we can see some more disparity between the usage in that graph.
I chose the axis scale so both charts would have the same one.
But here is the second one with the lower half of the planeset in higher resolution:
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3584/planeusagescaled.jpg)
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I chose the axis scale so both charts would have the same one.
But here is the second one with the lower half of the planeset in higher resolution:
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3584/planeusagescaled.jpg)
Yeah I noticed that but I couldn't read it as result. That looks a lot better I can compare the mid ranged of planes a lot better. Thx. :aok
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(http://photos.imageevent.com/dwr49/gifs/orson%20clapping.gif)
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thanks Lusche
Could you tell me the exact % of spit14 usage in LWMA Plane Usage graph? Number are small it's hard to see.
thanks again
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Could you tell me the exact % of spit14 usage in LWMA Plane Usage graph? Number are small it's hard to see.
0.29%
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0.29%
thanks, that must be me and a few noobs who are discovering that it does not handle like other spits. :)
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There came up one question yesterday in another thread:
"How many sorties of Axis planes vs Axis planes in AH?"
I can't tell the number of sorties flown, but of course we can determine the Usage Number for both:
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5678/alliedvsaxislwma2010.jpg)
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<S>
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Excellent!
:salute
Edit:
Did you happen to compile data on GV vs GV over time? As far as I know, it isn't available anywhere else.
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Absolutely fascinating reading, Lusche. Thank you for taking the time to compile that data
and posting it up. <S>
Regards,
Oddball
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Did you happen to compile data on GV vs GV over time? As far as I know, it isn't available anywhere else.
You mean usage or KD vs each other?
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Yes, K/D vs each other. There were some changes over the last 6 months and I'm looking for how they impacted survivability if you have it.
Thanks.
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Well done Sir, and thank you for spending the time to do this
Salute
Steely
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What will you ever do without this game...... :neener:
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Yes, K/D vs each other. There were some changes over the last 6 months and I'm looking for how they impacted survivability if you have it.
Thanks.
Pure K/D data I can post in a few minutes. A K/D matrix of each tanks vs each tank, over time, I do not have. I could do that, but it's more complex and needs quite a bit of work. I put it on my list :)
EDIT: Here we go:
(http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/2103/tankkdlwma2010.jpg)
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What will you ever do without this game...... :neener:
Waste my lifetime with different stuff... ya know, I had no life before AH too :uhoh
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VERY well put together. :aok
VERY well presented. :aok
As a former casino director, I can VERY much appreciate ALL the different aspects of data (provided the original data source is impecable).
WTG :cool:
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Pure K/D data I can post in a few minutes. A K/D matrix of each tanks vs each tank, over time, I do not have. I could do that, but it's more complex and needs quite a bit of work. I put it on my list :)
EDIT: Here we go:
Fantastic! Just what I was looking for, and Thank You again! :banana:
:cheers:
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Awesome. And the synth-pop in your sig makes a great soundtrack to read that with.
ahhhhh noooooooooooo it was 1980, called neue deutsch welle! the real one, i remeber great times back there
Ahh Lusche, again big WTG for your brilliant work!
this one could also been one of your favs, a track between NDW and classic new wave http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IxPjdHhck&feature=related
saw them twice! simply great
btw add this one too, classic NDW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ScQivK5DY&feature=related
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this one could also been one of your favs, a track between NDW and classic new wave http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IxPjdHhck&feature=related
saw them twice! simply great
btw add this one too, classic NDW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ScQivK5DY&feature=related
I utterly hate that stuff.
In fact, if I would write here what comes to my mind when I think of DAF, I would be PNG'd quickly.
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I utterly hate that stuff.
In fact, if I would write here what comes to my mind when I think of DAF, I would be PNG'd quickly.
LOL :rofl :aok
back in 1982, that was my stuff lusche http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyVIOEghpx8
played football mimies vs toten hosen... summer 1982 :rock
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Just stop it please... :uhoh
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(http://overheardinthesacristy.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/applause.gif)
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Just stop it please... :uhoh
NO! its real in sync with the people on RT holmes pic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4AM3sfpuo
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OUTSTANDING!!!!
Thanks Lusche
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This doesn't mean anything.......... American Marketing. If HTC were a German company the numbers would be reversed! :salute
There came up one question yesterday in another thread:
"How many sorties of Axis planes vs Axis planes in AH?"
I can't tell the number of sorties flown, but of course we can determine the Usage Number for both:
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5678/alliedvsaxislwma2010.jpg)
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I assume usage is determined by kills and deaths. It strikes me that some units, the Ar234 and Mosquito XVI in particular, will show far less than their true usage on the charts.
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Great... I can almost hear the whines again (been about a year now) in regards to perking the P38J again.
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look at where the iL2 is 11th in most used, amazing
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I assume usage is determined by kills and deaths. Just as I had defined at the very beginning
It strikes me that some units, the Ar234 and Mosquito XVI in particular, will show far less than their true usage on the charts. As stated in the notes to that chart
:D
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look at where the iL2 is 11th in most used, amazing
Well, it's the best anti tank plane there is, and the best tool to shoot vulchers in the face ;)
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Great... I can almost hear the whines again (been about a year now) in regards to perking the P38J again.
Interesting that the 38G is far above the 38L in K/D too. Imagine if I didn't fly the 38G with my lousy shooting and millions of deaths. The 38G would be above the J! :)
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Interesting that the 38G is far above the 38L in K/D too. Imagine if I didn't fly the 38G with my lousy shooting and millions of deaths. The 38G would be above the J! :)
It may be a shocking revelation to you.. but actually your flying does boost the 38G's K/D. Yes, I couldn't believe it myself, but without you it would be K/D 1.13, not 1.15. Somewhere out there is someone worse than you! :x
:bolt:
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A lot of excellent work there Snail!
(http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad341/maddafinga_photos/2a588510-2b91-4430-bc15-c868910240af.jpg)
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Nice work
Curious. What tour did the mandatory LW arena cap take place and has there been a significant change of players since that time one way or the other?
How about in amount of hours playing?
Or has it been negligible?
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Nice work
Curious. What tour did the mandatory LW arena cap take place and has there been a significant change of players since that time one way or the other?
Or has it been negligible?
The LW arena cap started right after the split, as the masses went back from the (then new) LW to EW. Either in the same tour or (at latest) in the next one (tours 80-81). As you can see in the big LW Activity chart, it doesn't seem that it had hurt the player base at all. But with so many factors guiding the popularity of an online game it's impossible for me to judge the exact impact.
And as one can see, the overall decline in player numbers we had since the peak around tour 98 also can't be blamed on any spectacular change or decision.
Oh, and as far as hours playing goes, I can't exactly tell (yet?). For tours before tour 120 I have only a few samples. It takes a lot of time to get the data for a single tour even... you gave to go through 4000-7000 score records per tour ;)
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Where do you get all the data? Nice work!
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Where do you get all the data?
Score & Stats page.
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How do you get away with being such a stats bookworm Lusche?
Just one nitpick: Bomber-GV death number doesn't tell the death's story, IE whether a GV battle was "ruined".
Kinda surprised the 152's so far up there. I remember I got the impression that just on my own I'd pushed its KD a few decimal digits for a couple of tours, but it's surprising anyone else would get into it.
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prachtvollen EVEN!
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How do you get away with being such a stats bookworm Lusche?
Just one nitpick: Bomber-GV death number doesn't tell the death's story, IE whether a GV battle was "ruined".
Kinda surprised the 152's so far up there. I remember I got the impression that just on my own I'd pushed its KD a few decimal digits for a couple of tours, but it's surprising anyone else would get into it.
I don't disagree on the Lanc-GV thing, but still 0.6% tank kills only means the comnplaints about and the evil image of the carpet bobing, GV killing buffs is disproportionate.
On the Ta 152: Well, As the Ta had more than 30,000 kills last year, there must be a few pilots more been flying that thing ;) (I was responsible for only 1.36% of them)
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AH War Economy
One has to admire the efficiency of the hidden AH armament factories. In "real life" 8,870 Panzer IV had been produced during the war, >30,000 109's, or about 16,000 P-51.
To keep up with the losses on the Late War Arena, the AH industries had to produce in the single year of 2010:
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5130/kaputt2010.jpg)
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So we are following real life right?
AH War Economy
One has to admire the efficiency of the hidden AH armament factories. In "real life" 8,870 Panzer IV had been produced during the war, >30,000 109's, or about 16,000 P-51.
To keep up with the losses on the Late War Arena, the AH industries had to produce in the single year of 2010:
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5130/kaputt2010.jpg)
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AH War Economy
:rofl Nice!
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Oh, and as far as hours playing goes, I can't exactly tell (yet?). For tours before tour 120 I have only a few samples. It takes a lot of time to get the data for a single tour even... you gave to go through 4000-7000 score records per tour ;)
Well then what the hell you doing sitting here talking to us then?.. Get on it. :P
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Lusche, beyond words, you the man. <<<S>>>
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Snailman once again amazing work sir! :salute Thank you!
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Awesome work! Whenever I start my velcro glove company with Silat, I'm hiring you for the quarterly updates!
(http://i53.tinypic.com/nycxo4.gif)
Even George Clooney loves your work.
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Your the man Lusche <S>
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Thanks for all the hard work, Lusche.
It'd be interesting to see when HTC had advertising campaigns running. I've always thought that their placement of AH2 ads during "Dogfights" a while back was very well done. I had no idea about this game until I saw that, and it was very exciting to see for me.
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see i have the curiosity to ask myself all these questions just not the drive to actually chart it all out. thank you for bridging the gap between my thirst for knowledge/understanding/statistics and my lack of motivation. :aok
<S>
:airplane:
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What is going on in tour 86 with the huge kill spike? Alos, i like to say i con tribute about a good % of panzer and M4 kills in my P-47D-25. :D
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What is going on in tour 86 with the huge kill spike?
I don't know for sure, but several factors could contribute. First, we only had small maps in late war, and with that more people it was quite a crowded place with a resulting higher rate if kills/hour. Then we had much higher average hours/player, though I have to admit I have no idea why (Maybe because a different online gaming environment back then - less competition, less choices for a player to waste his time? But that's just a shot in the dark).
And of course, single spikes on that chart do happen, because not all tours have the same length, and the number & distribution of holidays has a big impact on played hours too.
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I don't know for sure, but several factors could contribute. First, we only had small maps in late war, and with that more people it was quite a crowded place with a resulting higher rate if kills/hour. Then we had much higher average hours/player, though I have to admit I have no idea why (Maybe because a different online gaming environment back then - less competition, less choices for a player to waste his time? But that's just a shot in the dark).
And of course, single spikes on that chart do happen, because not all tours have the same length, and the number & distribution of holidays has a big impact on played hours too.
Tour 86 is when I started flying. I loved it more in the first two or three months than I love it now. I logged over 150 hours a few tours that year. The small maps were the best IMHO.
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Tour 86 is when I started flying. I loved it more in the first two or three months than I love it now. I logged over 150 hours a few tours that year. The small maps were the best IMHO.
I suspect that large maps made a lot more sense when LW was a single arena. Now that it is two arenas during prime time, I don't know that the 512x512 mile maps are serving the game very well anymore.
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I suspect that large maps made a lot more sense when LW was a single arena.
IMHO they still worked after the spilt, and i was actually glad when they came back. It's only in the recent two years that numbers went below whatever the critical point is. Not too long ago the lowest offpeak population was about 100, and that for a short time only.
Last year it went down to about 50, and we are for many hours now below 100. Same was true for the old caps mechanism. Years ago we had about 1 hour downtime when the caps kicked in, before both LW arenas finally were balanced. Last year we were approach in 4 hours downtime, severly crippling the game for those trying to play at that times.
What my stats unfortunately can't show (and thus I can't prove) is my strong impression that offpeak population has declined much more than (US) primetime population.
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I suspect that large maps made a lot more sense when LW was a single arena. Now that it is two arenas during prime time, I don't know that the 512x512 mile maps are serving the game very well anymore.
Like I said, I was never around to see the single arena, but what you say makes perfect sense.
And as Lusche says, the numbers have seemed to be down a lot in the last year or two. I remember when they put the big maps back in rotation. The first few months it was just the same as the small maps (several people online, fights everywhere, missions, etc...). Now, it seems like everyone is just spread out over the map (maybe a new timid playerbase that likes to attack their own base away from everyone else? Really couldn't do that with the small maps since there were less choices?)
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Now, it seems like everyone is just spread out over the map (maybe a new timid playerbase that likes to attack their own base away from everyone else? Really couldn't do that with the small maps since there were less choices?)
Unlike some others, I don't see that much changes in player behaviour. The kind of fight you see in MA is largely being shaped by circumstances. Less space means a concentration of action. More room means more opportunities to go elsewhere, and more opportunities to do "your thing". That's the thing I often found quite amusing: You have 5 guys agreeing in "we should get more organized" "no one does missions anymore", but then everyone of them attacks a different base. "Need troops A5", "Ack down A13", "need fighter cover P15, we can get it" "I'm gonna bomb" V23"
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Fantastic work Lusche, very yummy graphs :aok
If only HT would validate or supply suplimental information where needed (to correct grave misrepresentations, if any).
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- Do you think HTC will take note of the lack of effectivness of the Spit14 as justification to remove its perk cost?
- Isnt the HurriIID an ineffective ground attack vehicle, that hardly appears to function as designed?