Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Dover on May 12, 2012, 11:11:08 PM
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make HQ and Strat runs worth it
right now no one does them really
need to make it worth while either worth a lot of perkies or down for longer or somehow more valuable than they are now
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Ok hows about if you can organise a bomber mission that takes down a strat 100% and then your country's perked planes are free for an hour?
And a big text notice rolls by saying it to the whole game along with your name promently displayed. Suddenly your country's population doubles or triples with everyone switching sides for the free 262 and with the over balanced numbers you roll the map in the next hour with no resistance.
Is that fair? Is that a good game? Will players logoff when they see the message knowing whats coming?
A change is needed but, something more constructive for bomber pilots to feel quickly challenged and equitably rewarded.
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I don't think the bomber drivers care about "Quickly" so much as "Worth the trip", a successful trip all the way to the rear of another country, dodging fighters all the way, as well as 163's in the end should be the most valuable trip a Bomber could make and return from and land a boat load of points! As it is now, it pays better to go bomb town centers from space!
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Bomber missions are no longer survivable because of the modern conditions and the culture is not able to build the required momentum to provide a solid base of players and sense of self to provide a means or desire to carry out these missions.
We have plane configurations and weapons/ammunition that were historically selected for the purpose of destroying bombers and we are seeing the results the 'Real' Luftwaffe might of seen if such weapons had been as reliable and readily available as they are here.
What can we do other then making it harder to have these special weapons?
Even if the bomber culture were to somehow magically return to its mythical "state" of past lore, I doubt it would stop the whining about "why is there never any dar/fuel/ord?".
Sounds like one sacrafice for the other?
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im pretty sure the OP just made a spam thread..we've had millions of these "wishes" come up. at least put some ideas. this is the wishlist not whine section
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I replied cause I thought I was awsome; I failed :cry
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Ok hows about if you can organise a bomber mission that takes down a strat 100% and then your country's perked planes are free for an hour?
And a big text notice rolls by saying it to the whole game along with your name promently displayed. Suddenly your country's population doubles or triples with everyone switching sides for the free 262 and with the over balanced numbers you roll the map in the next hour with no resistance.
Is that fair? Is that a good game? Will players logoff when they see the message knowing whats coming?
A change is needed but, something more constructive for bomber pilots to feel quickly challenged and equitably rewarded.
i didnt ask for free planes I asked that the person or people who hit the strats or hq get perks for it
the other day we had a guy fly all the way there bomb it and make the run back landed and only got 1.5 perkies not only that but it was back up within 10 min
either make it worth it strategically where its down for 45 min and you can't resupply it or make it down for a 2 hours like it used to be and then it would take them 30 min to resupply it and be worth doing.
or make it worth it for the player 1.5 perkies for a 4 hour flight so not worth it i say its worth at least 10 times that
bomber pilots may not be as big or important as they where say back in 2003 or so but if you give them something to do it would be worth it again you would see more b-29's upping and taking longer flights you would see more combat like they had in the real wars instead of front line battles get deep penetrating flights with escorts
seriously heres the thing why have strats and a hq if they aren't worth destroying.
and if thats the fact as it is right now the bombers rarely need to leave base with more than 50% fuel cause your not going to be up for more than a hour or 2
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You asked for making it worth bombing the strats. That's a reward.
I upped the anty with making bombers very important with an extreamly important and effective reward. And a cautionairy tale.
I also agreed with you that a change is needed that makes the bombers relavant and a reward worth the relavency.
If you want to be angry there are better forums on the internet where you will be at home being angry over any responses you get to your original posted statement. Try Flame Warriors. The battels are meaninglessly epic and vitrolic. The only requirment is rhino hide for skin and an admantium lined stomach.
http://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/
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the other day we had a guy fly all the way there bomb it and make the run back landed and only got 1.5 perkies not only that but it was back up within 10 min
either make it worth it strategically where its down for 45 min and you can't resupply it or make it down for a 2 hours like it used to be and then it would take them 30 min to resupply it and be worth doing.
Bomb down the city first, then bomb down the strats...the city controls the strat downtime; at least I remember it that way.
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i didnt ask for free planes I asked that the person or people who hit the strats or hq get perks for it
the other day we had a guy fly all the way there bomb it and make the run back landed and only got 1.5 perkies not only that but it was back up within 10 min
either make it worth it strategically where its down for 45 min and you can't resupply it or make it down for a 2 hours like it used to be and then it would take them 30 min to resupply it and be worth doing.
or make it worth it for the player 1.5 perkies for a 4 hour flight so not worth it i say its worth at least 10 times that
bomber pilots may not be as big or important as they where say back in 2003 or so but if you give them something to do it would be worth it again you would see more b-29's upping and taking longer flights you would see more combat like they had in the real wars instead of front line battles get deep penetrating flights with escorts
seriously heres the thing why have strats and a hq if they aren't worth destroying.
and if thats the fact as it is right now the bombers rarely need to leave base with more than 50% fuel cause your not going to be up for more than a hour or 2
seriously what are you gonna do with the boatload of points? get 5 bucks off next month's dues? the satisfaction should be that you hit them and came back and were able to land.
I miss oneway, he would go on this 3 or 4 hour missions bomb every base between him and the strats and back. land his planes with about 3 or 4 kills too. he never did it for the boatload of points, he did it because it was fun for him.
wish people would stop with the "we should get more points" and actually enjoy the game.
semp
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notice the points was the second option the first was make it so killing them had a point in strategy and wasn't pointless
i would rather have it so if i hit the resources or hq that it would take longer to pop and not be as easily supplied back to normal
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Not sure increasing one player's ability to effect the "war" won't have unintended consequences.
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Not sure increasing one player's ability to effect the "war" won't have unintended consequences.
it takes more than one person to drop the strats
one person can take out the hq but thats alot more difficult than it sounds not to menyion getting to it
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seriously what are you gonna do with the boatload of points? get 5 bucks off next month's dues? the satisfaction should be that you hit them and came back and were able to land.
I miss oneway, he would go on this 3 or 4 hour missions bomb every base between him and the strats and back. land his planes with about 3 or 4 kills too. he never did it for the boatload of points, he did it because it was fun for him.
wish people would stop with the "we should get more points" and actually enjoy the game.
semp
Semp, ouch! I'll take a stab at this one. My assumption is a sortie at high alt involving 5 to 15 guys in bombers is good for the game. Y'all can figure out why.
Ok, mega buff points for strat runs. I'm for it. Let's say, I take off on a 90 min to 2 hour run with some other grey beards. Let's say we destroy the Ack Factory to 10%. We land. For our efforts, we get that magic # 300 buff perks. Those perks will get turned into B29's.
I'd say during these last months of playing, I've spent a good deal of time in buffs. After work, it's enjoyable. So, then it's hangars, ord & barracks, and town at the field levels. And teaching newer players how to go about this buffing thing most efficiently.
If the rewards of strat destroying were large in terms of bomber perks, old, old, old, guys like me (I'm guessing) would flock it more. Then as I said, that would toss more 29's into the air. Which I say is a good thing.
As it is now, when I contemplate a 29 sortie/mission, I'm looking at how much I can lose if it all goes south, and how much other guys will lose if they join the mission. Last night is a good example. Formation cost about 180. Great. Put it out on Country Channel, and the upshot was folks wanted to fly but either didn't have the perks or weren't too keen of putting the perks on the line. So, we upped B17's instead. Had a fine run. Were about 5+ of us attempting to hit a couple fields on the Rook front. It was a 22.5K run and tons of action. A few guys did quite well. I landed successfully after getting mauled mightily.
Now put perks into the pockets of buff pilots and those same guys and more will up 29's, and we'll go toddling in at 27.5K to 30K and have to wrestle with M Jugs and 152's. A good thing says I.
Also, 1 buff with 75% gas nailing tons of fields and strats is something I do from time to time. One can get away with it with a high likelihood of success due to the small dar footprint. So you can add my name to the growing list of "two" who do it for fun.
Mega perks for buffs accomplishes several things simultaneously that are beneficial for the game.
1) It won't adversely affect the gv "whack a mole" spawn battles.
2) It won't hamper the 5K ho'ing hot rod fur balls.
3) It won't put the kibosh on bust the hangars, bust the town, drive in an M3 captures.
4) It will add another dimension in terms of frequency of B29 runs at nose bleed altitudes. And, maybe, amongst the geriatric set, bring down the 29's to the 20K envelope.
Now, I'm thinking . . . nope. I don't like the idea of cutting the cost of the 29's in half. That will put more in the air, but do nothing to put more buffs over strats. If anyone is asking what's the big deal about the strats, for me, I figure its a function of playing Aces High since 2002. In the beginning, 5K fur was exhilarating. For a long time, porking field elements was my thing. Got a thrill out of it. Whack-a-mole still might be fun, but I'm lousy and slow at it. And the kids' eyes are better than mine. And kill all the hangars, for me, is just so inelegant and lame. I'm more of a nail the ack, vh, cap/vulch and get the town down and capture.
My guess is for vets who have been at this for better than a decade who also find buffing fun, the strat thing would be more a part of their play if the rewards were BIG. I think the last 29 run I put up was maybe 2 months ago. A big one that is. And it was quite small by some of the 15+ 29 runs I've tried to chase down since their introduction.
Yup. I'm for mega-strat points. I'm not asking anyone to play my way. Not depriving any of the fun they find the in game the way they like to play it. And not criticizing others' motives for playing this way or that.
Anyway, I doubt it'll ever happen. Oh well, the B17 is a great ride anyway.
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A change is needed but, something more constructive for bomber pilots to feel quickly challenged and equitably rewarded.
Would be interested in some of your more constructive suggestions bustr............... appologies if I missed them elsewhere.
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Tilt,
I don't have an answer.
A 3 sided conflict like ours has a primary rule. The ability to wage equal all out war at any time.
By definition strategic bombers are force multiplyers to specificly destroy the source of resources and the delivery sytems to cripple a country's ability to wage war. Thus how Hitech raised the bar so high for bombers to first destroy the strat, then the HQ to achive a 6 hour delay in a country wide regeneration time. Essentialy the same amount of time and effort to organising and directing a large player group to reset the map. In both cases you have an equal ability to defeat the effort.
Hap's take on it is a very mature approch working within the construct.
Most other strategies walk the abusable line of violating the primary rule of the 3 sided conflict in our game. They do this becasue, how else ultimatly can you reward strategic bombing except by letting them perform master stroke strategies forcing a country to it's knees while it's back is turned? Why else commit the hours to the process just for a few lousy points?
What better during off peak hours to bring a country to it's knees, nener nener them on 200 as you go to bed knowing you just screwed their pooch for hours to come. Thats the general gist of what most strategic bomber supporters really want. One button press and I personal screw you all, Yay bombers.
No I don't have an answer. I feel for bomber pilots but, they should let HTC deal with this after asking for a change. Not try to architect a change and not even know how the program works to protect all paying customers from being denyed their mutual fun. Everyone designs a change to make themselves happy, not the whole community.
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i agree that one person shouldn't be able to take a country to its knees by itself
but then again 1 262 enters a area how long can he fly around booming and zooming cause no one can keep up with him
bombers don't have that ability even in their highest perked plane we are still highly vulnerable to almost any aircraft with a half way decent pilot
what im asking and others is that if we put our necks and do these long missions with say 5 to 10 guys it would be a huge pay off like bringing a country to its knees if we are going to invest 3 to 5 hours flying in to do this mission is should atleast take that long for them to undo what we did
if a bomber set hits a factory in ww2 is it up before the bombers can even land
i know we can't do exactly like they did it would ruin the game but when i take out the hq and it is back up before i am even 2 sectors away that is completely BS
and you know what i like the idea the one guy posted 3 comments back how about this
the city doesn't change but we get a ton of perkies from it so taht there are more perk bombers flying i know i would fly 29's alot more if i could afford them more often
and then we change the hq i like what the one guy said about instead of a building make it a area and make it so it can't be resupplied if its a area not one guy can take it down then so it takes a mission to down it but it a exponential curve that puts a delay or maybe even just makes the radar untrustworthy have it cast shadows or not pick up groups of people or just less accurate some how till when the whole place is down its flat out off
but it can't be resupplied its a set time limit i would say of atleast 4 hours since thats how long its going to take the bombers to get out and land this at-least helps them hide their egress as well
so back to what i started with if 1 guy in a 262 can change the air battle at a base then 5 bomber pilots should be able to change the battle for a country
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Air battels are fought in localised areas. 262's are over hyped problems for how many are in the air at any time. We shoot them down all the time.
Strategic bombing is designed to effect the source of resources and distribution channels of resources thus crippling a country's ability to wage war. Game rule #1: the ability to wage equal war at all times.
In time you will not be happy with getting huge perks just for a round trip to the Factories or HQ. Eventualy you will inch your camel's nose farther under the tent and demand your time and effort accomplish something with a lasting effect becasue what else were bombers designed for. And thus the cautionairy tale of free perk rides for 60 minutes.
Equal ability to wage war at all times means all capturable objects are the Strategic Objectives independent of other capturable objects. Any idea you come up with you need to figure out how to game it to your advantage. If you can it's a bad idea for this game.
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and if one guys ups a 262 and chases down and kills the other 262 it stops one guy from bring them to there knees. Buffs making the long trip WITHOUT fighter escort are just asking to be shot down. Do you bring escorts? Do you fly a tight formation to protect the other buffs? You seem to want a lot of points/perks without any risks. Maybe just learn to shot and plan better will get you want you want.
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my question is still if you think its so pointless then why do you do it. and better yet, knowing its small effect, why do you bomb the HQ/strats and then come and whine?
definition of insanity:doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome
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From a long term perspective.
I beleive HTC will evolve the game steadily but, slowly.
I beleive HTC will not kill their livelyhood just to make a new generation of players happy because they can complain loudy in these forums.
Is it time for a change? Some change is probably coming as part of the normal evolution cycle.
This evolution of the game is one of the best I've seen. And what does HTC get as their reward? Whining about can you chage it now, can you change it now, can you change it now..........
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Strategic bombing is designed to effect the source of resources and distribution channels of resources thus crippling a country's ability to wage war. Game rule #1: the ability to wage equal war at all times.
how does making the radar down for a longer period of time even 45 min like when you knock out the actaul tower or giving perkies worth the trip make the other side not able to wage war
i'm not asking for them not to be able to up planes
i'm not asking for all their ord to be down
i'm asking for the strats to be effective and when you take them out not be so easy to negate why should i have to put so much effort into bombing them and you only have to put 1 tenth the effort into getting back up
i'm asking for fair is fair here
if we kill the strats for lets say ords, ok so we down ords at a base
well you got the next base back we aren't ending your ability to fight we are making it harder for you to fight
i would never ask for me to be able to shut down a whole country with one mission but that if i put together a organized mission with escorts and everything else its worth doing
this is no differant than killing the starts at a base it just makes it so the strats at the base won't automatically pop or will atleast take longer too
be sides the people you are talking about the ones who just want to have fun and fight they don't care about ords or radar or darbar or troops or ack or any of that it wouldn't affect thier fight at all
the hangers will still pop in 15 min the same planes will still all be available this will simply let those who play the strat base cap style able to add another dimension to it
and if you look back at histroy this is how it was and theres no reason it should have been changed and i don't see one person going wow im happy they changed that back in 2008 or whatever it was
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You are asking for a country wide blanket denyal of a equal ability war resource for nearly an hour.
That is a 2 sided war death match strategy to allow unrestricted enemy movement in a country's space as a punishment for allowing you to bomb a targetable bottelneck in the game flow. You are asking as a reward for your effort unrestricted enemy movement from 2 fronts inside of a third country for nearly an hour. As is HQ can be resupplied and the lights turned back on very quickly to regain the war resource.
You are violating rule #1 because you want HTC to introduce process flow knock out blows how ever small as a strategic option and self reward mechanism. Same reason the atomic bomb is not available with the B29.
Equal ability to wage war at all times.
You really dislike that key rule to making a 3 sided conflict process work equaly for all the paying customers. You are attached to the idea of knock out blows in war games as a reward for your efforts and the opening move for crushing a country. Your design fails because you are not thinking about the whole community's equal fun across 3 countries. Just how to introduce knock out blows to bottelnecks how ever small to the process flow in a benign harmless looking package.
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Game rule #1: the ability to wage equal war at all times.
I disagree with your rule #1.
I would modify it to read Game rule #1: The ability to wage war at all times.
After the first move, there is no such thing as an equal fight in any game. The key is to keep from crippling a side while maintaining depth to game-play.
Perhaps you could explain to the community what in your opinion the strat does and why it's in the game, it's intended purpose? If you can do that, then you can probably suggest improvements.
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Expect a bunch of hot air.
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Equal ability to wage war at all times.
so you can't deny the fact the ENY needs fixing to then by your own words you are making the ENY system invalid
it limits my ability to a equal fight all the time
so kill eny or give me my worth while strat runs your choice
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All I'll say is I no longer fly bombers or attack aircraft because the only targets I have are airfields and GV bases which I now use to fly airplanes and drive GV's and I wouldn't want my own fun spoiled. That took away half the game for me so asking for a change in the strat game isn't so far-fetched.
I'd just like to see a return to the zone system and strats spread across the map.
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I too would make rule # 1 read something like "all players should have (equal) access to combat"
I do not see any requirement that the war should be balanced beyond that the game model should not have a predetermined bias to any chess piece.
Edit
Btw "equal ability to wage war" and "ability to equally wage war" are not the same
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Semp, ouch! I'll take a stab at this one. My assumption is a sortie at high alt involving 5 to 15 guys in bombers is good for the game. Y'all can figure out why.
Ok, mega buff points for strat runs. I'm for it. Let's say, I take off on a 90 min to 2 hour run with some other grey beards. Let's say we destroy the Ack Factory to 10%. We land. For our efforts, we get that magic # 300 buff perks. Those perks will get turned into B29's.
I'd say during these last months of playing, I've spent a good deal of time in buffs. After work, it's enjoyable. So, then it's hangars, ord & barracks, and town at the field levels. And teaching newer players how to go about this buffing thing most efficiently.
If the rewards of strat destroying were large in terms of bomber perks, old, old, old, guys like me (I'm guessing) would flock it more. Then as I said, that would toss more 29's into the air. Which I say is a good thing.
As it is now, when I contemplate a 29 sortie/mission, I'm looking at how much I can lose if it all goes south, and how much other guys will lose if they join the mission. Last night is a good example. Formation cost about 180. Great. Put it out on Country Channel, and the upshot was folks wanted to fly but either didn't have the perks or weren't too keen of putting the perks on the line. So, we upped B17's instead. Had a fine run. Were about 5+ of us attempting to hit a couple fields on the Rook front. It was a 22.5K run and tons of action. A few guys did quite well. I landed successfully after getting mauled mightily.
Now put perks into the pockets of buff pilots and those same guys and more will up 29's, and we'll go toddling in at 27.5K to 30K and have to wrestle with M Jugs and 152's. A good thing says I.
Also, 1 buff with 75% gas nailing tons of fields and strats is something I do from time to time. One can get away with it with a high likelihood of success due to the small dar footprint. So you can add my name to the growing list of "two" who do it for fun.
Mega perks for buffs accomplishes several things simultaneously that are beneficial for the game.
1) It won't adversely affect the gv "whack a mole" spawn battles.
2) It won't hamper the 5K ho'ing hot rod fur balls.
3) It won't put the kibosh on bust the hangars, bust the town, drive in an M3 captures.
4) It will add another dimension in terms of frequency of B29 runs at nose bleed altitudes. And, maybe, amongst the geriatric set, bring down the 29's to the 20K envelope.
Now, I'm thinking . . . nope. I don't like the idea of cutting the cost of the 29's in half. That will put more in the air, but do nothing to put more buffs over strats. If anyone is asking what's the big deal about the strats, for me, I figure its a function of playing Aces High since 2002. In the beginning, 5K fur was exhilarating. For a long time, porking field elements was my thing. Got a thrill out of it. Whack-a-mole still might be fun, but I'm lousy and slow at it. And the kids' eyes are better than mine. And kill all the hangars, for me, is just so inelegant and lame. I'm more of a nail the ack, vh, cap/vulch and get the town down and capture.
My guess is for vets who have been at this for better than a decade who also find buffing fun, the strat thing would be more a part of their play if the rewards were BIG. I think the last 29 run I put up was maybe 2 months ago. A big one that is. And it was quite small by some of the 15+ 29 runs I've tried to chase down since their introduction.
Yup. I'm for mega-strat points. I'm not asking anyone to play my way. Not depriving any of the fun they find the in game the way they like to play it. And not criticizing others' motives for playing this way or that.
Anyway, I doubt it'll ever happen. Oh well, the B17 is a great ride anyway.
i think it's all bs. all the vets who asked for the b29 so they could spend the 1k's of bomber points they had, they hardly ever fly one. I have plenty of times hit the strats but the way the current scoring system works, it wont help you much to up your score if you know how it works. you may get mega points but lose score in a couple of others.
if you really understood how the scoring system works then you would understand that hitting strats wont get you anywhere close to being ranked #1. it will actually count against you. bomber scoring is not really any different than fighter scoring. you must do short runs and get lots of kills quickly with the difference than in bombers you cant rearm easily and go back for another 1 or 2 hour run, like in fighters because it goes against you.
semp
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i think it's all bs. all the vets who asked for the b29 so they could spend the 1k's of bomber points they had, they hardly ever fly one. I have plenty of times hit the strats but the way the current scoring system works, it wont help you much to up your score if you know how it works. you may get mega points but lose score in a couple of others.
if you really understood how the scoring system works then you would understand that hitting strats wont get you anywhere close to being ranked #1. it will actually count against you. bomber scoring is not really any different than fighter scoring. you must do short runs and get lots of kills quickly with the difference than in bombers you cant rearm easily and go back for another 1 or 2 hour run, like in fighters because it goes against you.
semp
Damage per time isn't part of the bomber scoring system and neither are kills so clearly you do not understand the scoring system.
Damage points (objects destoyed), damage hit % (objects destroyed per bomb) damage per sortie and damage per death are the big drivers of bomber score. In the past with the spread strats bombing cities with heavy bombs was the most effective way to achieve bomber rank which also affected game strategy. Now it's dropping one bomb into the middle of several towns which accomplishes nothing but rank achievement.
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also on the ME 262 thing i stated
current stats on the k/d ratio for them 6.26
only tanks have higher k/d
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also on the ME 262 thing i stated
current stats on the k/d ratio for them 6.26
And because of that, the Me 262 is heavily perked and a massive losing deal for most players in terms of perks. Result: Only 3.6% of all heavy bomber in the current year had been made by 262s.
only tanks have higher k/d
You might want to check that again ;)
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yes but the highest perked bomber can't even hope to do anywhere near a equivalent run with the impact and return points under the current system
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yes but the highest perked bomber can't even hope to do anywhere near a equivalent run with the impact and return points under the current system
The problem of comparing two very different things (fighters & bombers) with the same metric aside, you can make yourself quite invulnerable in the B-29 and the Ar 234. Most 29's are being shot down by using a less than optimum mission profile.
On a personal note, I checked my own stats and noted that the 262 was responsible for 7.3% of my own bomber losses. But then I lost 16 bombers to Me 262 in 3526 sorties. That's only 0.14%...
In the end, the Me 262 is already balanced quite well in the MA.
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Damage per time isn't part of the bomber scoring system and neither are kills so clearly you do not understand the scoring system.
Damage points (objects destoyed), damage hit % (objects destroyed per bomb) damage per sortie and damage per death are the big drivers of bomber score. In the past with the spread strats bombing cities with heavy bombs was the most effective way to achieve bomber rank which also affected game strategy. Now it's dropping one bomb into the middle of several towns which accomplishes nothing but rank achievement.
no the kills reference was about how the fighter scoring works. but the damage per sorty is a big one. so hitting the strats wont really give you a boost in score. getting a mossie and rearming with 1 4k bomb and hit several towns will give you a bigger bump in your score for the time spent than going to the strats. and that's the truth.
but you are right about hitting just one bomb in every town. or taking a tank to a town while a member of your squad is in the opposite country flying over you like I have seen it done with a couple of hour top aces here.
semp
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The problem of comparing two very different things (fighters & bombers) with the same metric aside, you can make yourself quite invulnerable in the B-29 and the Ar 234. Most 29's are being shot down by using a less than optimum mission profile.
On a personal note, I checked my own stats and noted that the 262 was responsible for 7.3% of my own bomber losses. But then I lost 16 bombers to Me 262 in 3526 sorties. That's only 0.14%...
In the end, the Me 262 is already balanced quite well in the MA.
i think you got me wrong i'm not complaining about the 262
i'm saying there should be a equivalent in the bombers where a good pilot in bomber that spends the points to up 29's should be able to affect a fight in the same way
where as right now they can't have any more affect on a fight than a set of unperked lancs
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What would that be, "affect the fight in the same way" ?
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making the strats worth something so when you drop them it does something serious and not able to be resupplied so all your effort isn't undone with 1/10th the effort or at least take more re-supplying than it currently does and when i say more i mean alot more like 50 times more
and if you up a 262 and kill 6 people how many perk points is that gotta be at least what 5 or 6 maybe a little more depending on eny and the planes
you drop the hq and its 1.7 perkies
just asking the bombers can get more for their effort to make the larger effort items worth doing so you won't have people doing lame milk runs on towns
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making the strats worth something so when you drop them it does something serious and not able to be resupplied so all your effort isn't undone with 1/10th the effort or at least take more re-supplying than it currently does and when i say more i mean alot more like 50 times more
and if you up a 262 and kill 6 people how many perk points is that gotta be at least what 5 or 6 maybe a little more depending on eny and the planes
you drop the hq and its 1.7 perkies
just asking the bombers can get more for their effort to make the larger effort items worth doing so you won't have people doing lame milk runs on towns
If you kill 5 or 6 people in a Me 262, it's usually worth much less than 5 or 6 perks. Killing 2 sets of 17's (= six planes is worth a whopping 1.5 perks. If you keep in mind that the average K/D of the 262 is something like 6.7 you will see that this is a massive negative deal in term of perks in the long run. Nobody can afford flying a 262 only, in the long run (most of the time it's actually a short run) you simply can't generate enough perks to pay off the inevitable losses.
And on the topic of "affect the fight the same way" - A single fighter generally has local effect only. If lucky or exceptionally good (or both), he can thwart a base capture attempt single handedly (goon hunting in a fast plane), but that's about it and quite rare to boot. On the other hand, a single bomber pilot can have a notable local effect too, for one player alone can shut down a base for ~10 minutes, which is quite a significant impact.
What you are asking for seems to be a massive global effect for a single bomber, which would not be "affecting the fight in the same way".
I'm all for a significant boost of the strategic part of the gameplay, but while discussing it we have to be careful to to directly compare apples & oranges.
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i think it's all bs. all the vets who asked for the b29 so they could spend the 1k's of bomber points they had, they hardly ever fly one.
semp
I had thousands of bomber points and up'd the 29 many times, till I ran out of bomber points, earning those points back has become quite tedious without high value targets. Now I only up one 29 a month these days, I suspect most of the bomber drivers have the same problem!
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10 successfull well planned missions in a single b29 plus 2-3 goon captures will give you top 1, 2 or 3 bomber ranking.
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10 successfull well planned missions in a single b29 plus 2-3 goon captures will give you top 1, 2 or 3 bomber ranking.
yeah thats a totaly different problem too there i was ranked 12 last time i looked and i had something like 150 more sorties than anyone ranked above me and something like double plus their hours
but thats another wish
edit* its like 100 more sortie but still double the time in flight
i get what your saying and im not asking for the target to be taken out by one person make it so you need like 5 bomber sets of b29's to take it out which would be like 7 or 8 lanc sets and like 30 sets of b17's
i don't want one person to do it but i want a mission and a group of people to be able to do it
never once did i say i want a single set of bombers to be able to level the whole country
i just want it to be worthy takeing my one set of a group into the target
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I had thousands of bomber points and up'd the 29 many times, till I ran out of bomber points, earning those points back has become quite tedious without high value targets. Now I only up one 29 a month these days, I suspect most of the bomber drivers have the same problem!
i got weeks without seeing one. and that's from the moment they were added. actually i have lost perhaps 15 or 16 b29's. the first 7 were due to a bug when they were introduced. the others were on a dare to take off from a certain field. took me 4 sets but I made it :).
semp
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On the reverse side of this, maybe drastically lowering the b29 perk cost might be a good solution to the situation.
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On the reverse side of this, maybe drastically lowering the b29 perk cost might be a good solution to the situation.
The B-29 is a plane without a mission anyway as long as the main strats are broken. That's a main reason we don't see that many of them. For every target that really makes a difference in this game, there are other bombers with a better fitting mission profile.
It doesn't get better when we lower B-29 cost too much so that it just becomes an Ultra-Lanc. But it can get better when we give this long range, high altitude bomber a valuable target worth all that flight time.
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The B-29 is a plane without a mission anyway as long as the main strats are broken. That's a main reason we don't see that many of them. For every target that really makes a difference in this game, there are other bombers with a better fitting mission profile.
It doesn't get better when we lower B-29 cost too much so that it just becomes an Ultra-Lanc. But it can get better when we give this long range, high altitude bomber a valuable target worth all that flight time.
ding ding ding you won great way of putting it
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If you haven't been around for about 10 years you would have seen that HTC adding something like the B29 with it's 10x force multiplyer over other heavy bombers is HTC feeling out in baby steps upping the anti on the game. If the next release HTC decides to turn the corner towards choke point punitive strats and set loose the strategic bombing war on the 3 countries, then as always I'll adapt like I have for a decade.
Until then HTC has been pretty good about not killing what makes the 3 sides work 24x7 by taking their time to test out new directions.
The equal ability to wage war at all times.
I do beleive a change is about time. I beleive HTC is the only entity qualified to come up with it and not violate rule #1.
Yo should talk to Fester. At least he is working with maps to make Lemonaid Spiced with his personal brand of Vodka to work within the limits imposed by HTC. His maps are some of the best in the game becasue he is taking the bull by the horns rather than shouting at mountains in these forums.
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The B-29 is a plane without a mission anyway as long as the main strats are broken. That's a main reason we don't see that many of them. For every target that really makes a difference in this game, there are other bombers with a better fitting mission profile.
It doesn't get better when we lower B-29 cost too much so that it just becomes an Ultra-Lanc. But it can get better when we give this long range, high altitude bomber a valuable target worth all that flight time.
everybody knew this when they voted for it to be included. perk planes are not meant to give your perks. the other planes are meant to get your perks so you can fly the perk planes. it isnt the lack of targets or not enough points that make people not fly bombers. it's the fact that it's boring for most players who really join to fly fighters. that is the problem.
not many players are willing to take a 1 or 2 hour long trip no matter how many points/perks/cents off the monthly dues you give them. this is the part where most of you guys who want the strats "fixed" fail to realize. there are lots of people who will bomb, I do but mostly to sink cv's. but only for short trips of 25 to 20 min in duration.
the giving more points for hitting the strats will only help those who already love to pad their score by dropping one bomb in every town for hours on end. but it wont be an incentive to have more people fly long range missions.
that's what i think anyway. and if you ask me about facts, then may I remind you about when a cv is near a base, not many people will bother to bring a set of buffs for the 20 min ride and the easy 15 to 20 perks that you will earn for sinking it. they would rather up a heavy jug or fighter and just furball it to death. except for the noobs who will bring lancs one after the other noe from the base that is under attack and die more times than you can count.
semp
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everybody knew this when they voted for it to be included.
Not everybody did thinkabout it or was aware of it, as could be seen by the huge number of "B-29 will ruin the game" and "fields will stay constantly closed" prophecies of doom.
perk planes are not meant to give your perks. the other planes are meant to get your perks so you can fly the perk planes. it isnt the lack of targets or not enough points that make people not fly bombers. it's the fact that it's boring for most players who really join to fly fighters. that is the problem.
I don't think that's a problem. None of us - or at least not me ;) - is trying to change the game in a way that everybody should end up flying boring bomber missions.
not many players are willing to take a 1 or 2 hour long trip no matter how many points/perks/cents off the monthly dues you give them. this is the part where most of you guys who want the strats "fixed" fail to realize. there are lots of people who will bomb, I do but mostly to sink cv's. but only for short trips of 25 to 20 min in duration.
the giving more points for hitting the strats will only help those who already love to pad their score by dropping one bomb in every town for hours on end. but it wont be an incentive to have more people fly long range missions.
Oh, I think it will be an incentive, because there are a lot of players that stopped to fly long range missions just because they are not 'worth' it, in game impact as well in score.
What 'most of us' are looking for is not a complete game changer, we are not trying to make everyone flying hour long bomber missions. But I wan't to increase variety for those that do. And even the "20 minute players", which are indeed the majority, may try for something different every once in a while.
And if it's just us "town center killers" that would now have to go after the strats, a lot would be won. If the most distant, heavily defended and obvious target gives has the biggest 'reward', it just sounds like a better balanced game to me. If you want plenty points, you have to fight for it.
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then good luck, wish you the best :salute.
semp
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Luche, your overthinking this i'd say. This is not just a matter of game design, its a matter of community and culture as well.
If people lack an adequate fighting chance to complete a mission due to the enviroment of buff killing planes they simply wont fly them because like its been said, there is no reward for the risk.
People need to feel they have a chance, even if its a slim one; and I know making the b29 more available will provide something in that direction.
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I know there are lots of examples of ac being used in a manner which is not historically representative.............. however that is not an arguement for encouraging it further.............
The B29 is/was uber because it can/could carry a lot of ord very high and very far.......... and actually thats just how its being used (albeit, generally, against tactical town targets then strategic targets) I think lowering the perk price (substantially) would encourage its use ingame in a more non historical manner.
Whilst some modification to perk may be possible I would not like to see it (B29's) so cheap as to have common use as a medium altitude bomber in the MA in place of the B17, B24 or Lanc.
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If people lack an adequate fighting chance to complete a mission due to the environment of buff killing planes they simply wont fly them because like its been said, there is no reward for the risk.
As it is now, when strats are several sectors away from hq, the chances of landing successfully are high compared to having to fend off Me163's where the chances are slim.
I'm going to take a slight risk and speak for the old farts who have been around for a decade and who enjoy long bomber runs. Now obviously, what I say will not be agreed upon by all, but at least on the Bishop side, I've flown with these guys for years, and have come to know their likes and dislikes to some degree. I know of no one who has said, "Gosh, I wish B29's were cheap enough so we could fly them at 15K (pick your altitude if you like), and not worry about perk bank running dry when we lose them." So making them cheap is not a solution that would improve the game. If anything, it would make it worse, more gamey, arcade-like, and weird.
As to town center milking, well let's ditch that in favor of strat milking. I think that's the jist (not as an alternative to town centers per se) of these threads. And since B29 will continue to cost roughly 300 perks for a formation (yes, yes, depending on eny up or down), we're not going to see them much at cloud layer over strats should strat perk earning potential be greatly increased. What would transpire, I suppose, would be a greater frequency of high alt buff runs into the strat complexes that are out of 163 range. And also, an increase in #'s of those participating. In no way am I imagining the same large numbers that your average NOE let's club an airfield to death garners. 8 buff formations will fill a sector with dar. It's that dar moving slowly that get's the other side's attention, and creates a nice semi-historical fight. Even without 29's, whenever we see a rearward dar pop up, we know what's up: a big buff run. We don't know the target right off the bat. We don't know their terminal altitude or planes. But we know something's afoot, and it's in the 8+ pilot/player range.
Again, attempting to speak for guys like me the old buffers, I've never heard it bandied about that the game would be better if folks played like us. Never once. My best friends in the game are all over 40 years old and most over 50. It would be ludicrous to expect what trips our trigger to fire the imagination of twenty year olds and kids.
As things stand in the game right now, those sort of missions are entirely possible even without B29's. I don't fly them regularly because they aren't posted often. The last one I participated in was about 2 weeks ago. Certainly, during the peak hours, on country channel, someone will voice their desire to hit strats or hq. In other words, a deep run. And, not infrequently, that mission gets a few participants, let's say less that 5. And by the time they arrive, they are down to 3 players because I'm supposing the ones that quit found it tedious. Now the names associated with those missions aren't one's I know well. So, I figure they are newer guys excited by the notion of hitting our enemies industrial complexes. Well, it does sound good, right? And the attrition rate of those runs sounds just about right to me. It's more fun to do other stuff for them than a 45 min+ buff run.
As to the older set of players who buff, 45 min+ is not an attention span challenge, nor do we regard it as tedious or boring. However, with the results being so sparse, I cannot justify it from a in-game strategic point of view or from a personal, "Yup, that run earned all of us 50 perks" point of view." It's a time to visit, play, and have fun.
Now, if the point earning were shifted, and participants who landed did in fact earn 50 to 100 buff perks each due to that text buffer filling up big time, that would pull more of us into the air on those sort of runs more frequently.
I really don't see a down side at all. I don't think teenagers to that 30 year old still-a-teen-at-heart crowd could care less what we old ducks do. Unless, it's to shoot us down since we're milking their strats. And amongst the Bishops, I can think of two squads who'd likely be amenable to such a change, and I can think of, oh . . . somewhere around 10 guys to whom a strat milking high reward set up would appeal to naturally given our ages, personalities, and temperaments. Now . . . what I'm not adding in is the excitement factor that sort of "pulls along" other players into such a mix. Get some "name" guys upping such a run (and I'm most definitely NOT one of those name guys) then the #'s can balloon to 10 to 20 guys in a run. Sounds like fun to me.
Now I'll shut up after this. What was it, a month or two after the 29's were introduced, someone from Rooks or Knights but up a HUGE B29 run into the Bish strats. Very successfully I might add. Was way fun for the Bish who were unable to turn them back. We saw the dar, we tracked it, it's all we were talking about. Guys, lots, started upping, and it was a melee to say the least.
I do understand the arguments against making strats uber rewarding for buff strikes. As I see them they follow: It's dumb and boring. Most players won't participate. You know, I think that covers the arguments opposing such a change. No buff pilots I know want "most players" to fly in such a run. Only need 8 to 15 to put up 24 to 45 planes. And there are during peak times 8 to 15 guys give or take who fancy such runs fun.
Now there might be coding problems that make such a change impossible. Or HTC might know that it would be a bad business move. Well, those would be the two deal killers in my book. Those are the only ones I see.
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Again, attempting to speak for guys like me the old buffers, I've never heard it bandied about that the game would be better if folks played like us. Never once. My best friends in the game are all over 40 years old and most over 50. It would be ludicrous to expect what trips our trigger to fire the imagination of twenty year olds and kids.
As to the older set of players who buff, 45 min+ is not an attention span challenge, nor do we regard it as tedious or boring. However, with the results being so sparse, I cannot justify it from a in-game strategic point of view or from a personal, "Yup, that run earned all of us 50 perks" point of view." It's a time to visit, play, and have fun.
I really don't see a down side at all. I don't think teenagers to that 30 year old still-a-teen-at-heart crowd could care less what we old ducks do. Unless, it's to shoot us down since we're milking their strats. And amongst the Bishops, I can think of two squads who'd likely be amenable to such a change, and I can think of, oh . . . somewhere around 10 guys to whom a strat milking high reward set up would appeal to naturally given our ages, personalities, and temperaments. Now . . . what I'm not adding in is the excitement factor that sort of "pulls along" other players into such a mix. Get some "name" guys upping such a run (and I'm most definitely NOT one of those name guys) then the #'s can balloon to 10 to 20 guys in a run. Sounds like fun to me.
Hap I totaly agree with you
just 2 small things
i just turned 30 and i know some other guys my age and a bit younger who do are getting into the bombing and are already into it
(having my tv on and watching things while i do my hour long climb helps too)
i know me and you bump heads a bit on the bish side sometimes but we have the same goal in mind in the end and i have to say man you are one of the "names" in my book happily jump your missions any time when i can
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:aok
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The one part of the game that has cunfused me is strategic bombing versus localised effect bombing to aid the movement along a front. The localised effect bomber pilots are past being good at dictating the outcome of localised combat whether requested or not.
Now magnify that to a country level and you can understand why no strategic choke points. HTC was shrewd in including manned 88 with timed fuzes rather than the british 3lb(not sure Im corrrect on type) with proximity fuses. Furballers would pass up a furball just to wipe bombers from the skys over their airfield like 5in from CV. Localised bombers are like a COP with a flashlight when she just said yes in the back seat.
The giant Factory strat is an eventual high value target if the effort is made. But, it protects itself essentialy by it's size, location and overall individual man efforts to destroy by 100%. Then the reward and or result to the game is a tad bit vauge for the average player and the time he wants to expend.
I understand during peak play time the easy access to and location of 163 adds considerably to the job and is more often rewarding to the 163 pilot than the bomber pilot or group of pilots. But, then comes the after peak hours with few players on the map and milk run time. An easy strategic global target with a major influence to a country then is similar to locking your pet couger up for the night in a freinds butcher shop. It's obvious you only care about your couger no matter the damage in the morning when your friend opens his shop. His dissipointed customers will spend their meat money at a competitor regardless of the quality.
Enter HTC's problem from a playability point of view in creating a change for strategic bombers without customers voting with their feet.
The real outcomes and rewards to bombing the giant factory strat don't seem to match the man effort required to complete the herculean job. Everything else in the game rewards better for the man effort when you succeed.
I don't know. Change would be called for in this situation. Split the Factory into 3 parts across the country then for destroying each one Jessica Simpson gives you a big wet one on the cheek....Hap comes to your house in a TuTu and does the Hippo dance from Fantasia. Fugitive sends you signed self portraits.
I beleive a change should happen. But, only HTC knows what won't kill the golden goose on the first day.
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Very well said and exactly the reasons I stopped flying buffs. Time aloft was never an issue.
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Hap I totaly agree with you
just 2 small things
i just turned 30 and i know some other guys my age and a bit younger who do are getting into the bombing and are already into it
(having my tv on and watching things while i do my hour long climb helps too)
i know me and you bump heads a bit on the bish side sometimes but we have the same goal in mind in the end and i have to say man you are one of the "names" in my book happily jump your missions any time when i can
I taught Hap how to run mission back in the day when he was in the Mafia with me :devil
The issue really isn't with the game. All of the mechanics are there. you can bomb factories and have it hurt, you can cause all kinds of trouble if you run the missions right and hit things in the right order ( tho it does seem there is an issue with the repair times right now). The problem isn't with the game, it's with the people.
I AM NOT PICKING ON THE vGUYS!! <-- notice the caps, I really mean it !!! The vGuys have a reputation of rolling base after base. It seems to me that you might be getting bored with doing that, the same mission time and time again. Which is natural. So now your looking to expand. The plan is to hit depots and HQ to cripple/hurt/slow down the enemies offensive, take try and take away their ability to "make war". It's a good plan, bold, but now you are finding out that with out a lot of people to work together on it it is a lot of work and very hard to do. Not enough people join the missions to get it done. Too many people rolling base while the enemy does the same. Too many people furballing.
So here you are asking that things get changed to make it easier to accomplish your mission, with out the extra help you have such a hard time getting. It's just how people are playing these days. They are looking for that quick win (HOs, NOE base grabs, horde base attacks), what ever gives them that quick win. It takes too long to hit HQ, and when you do it right it takes too long to see the benefits. Nobody is thinking ahead, they are all in the now.
I'd like to see the issue Fester and Lusche found with the unit repairing themselves in 45 minutes no matter how things are hit. I'd also like to see HTC add something different, just so it IS different. I don't want to see them change things so that what was meant for 10-15 guys to do in a mission can be done by 4 or 5
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not asking for them to change to get easier the real thing is the way we are all asking for it to be was the way it was
we are saying it should have never changed from 7 or 10 years ago or whenever it was they changed it exactly i can't remember
the point is they had it done a way that took alot of effort had a good pay off and wasn't easy for one person to do
why did they change that
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I'm not sure why they changed it. My "guess" is that they thought that with all the bombers we had, grouping the depots together would create large player groups working together to bomb them. Large bomber groups would have escorts, and defenders would see them coming from a long way off so they could up to defend making a "prime" area of combat. It never really materialized. Too many "gamers" as apposed to "simmers". Gamers want stuff now, want to see instant results.
Ideally I'd love to see the main arenas have the same as a scenario. The scenarios have a mission plan, defenders have their plans hoping to choose right and intercept the in coming attack. Imagine that happening in the mains with 4 or 5 scenarios running at once. That's how it was with fights happening all over the map as small groups/squads fought to take or defend all over the place. Today, too many feel they can't do it in a small group and so they join the bigger ones making them bigger. Before you know it there is one big group rolling bases with almost no little groups left. What do you think would happen if you got the large group together after their most recent base capture and launched the next mission to the Strats in stead of another base? My guess is the mission would fall apart and unless someone stepped up by saying "lets take such and such a base" the group would fall apart as well. Its the nature of the beast.... for now.
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As I consider these things, I think in terms of 10% of our "in flight" numbers as doable roster for high altitude bomber missions. Eons ago, I did my best to rage against the "gamer machine." All to no avail. Now, it's like, Okay, given the # of players available right now, what's a number I think I might be able to recruit for a run? And really, that 10%'ish number is sufficient to create fun and fight. I think at night the largest group I had was 10, and the smallest was 3 or 4. So between 30 and 9 bombers in the air counting drones.
Also, doing nothing in a hurry helps.
And, should HTC increase the inducement to hit strats from a point persective and not a damaging the other side's ability to "gamer on," more opportunities will present themselves.
Oh, little maps. We've had a few in succession where all the strat stuff doesn't fly with the exception of the "we dare you and double dare you" BIG mission 163's be darned. That's fine with me. Been finding some joy in the 250 lb B17 load out of late. And fwiw, looked at the load out of the B29 in terms of gross weight versus bomb size. I gravitate towards the 10K, 12K, & 14K choices: 500 lbers, 1,000 lbers, and 250 lbers respectively. A funny note. Last 29 run I posted last week sometime was with the fifty-six 250 lb bombs. We get to alt on Military Power then reduce to Normal Power (been doing that on all my runs for better of a month now regardless of the ride; I like it.). Well the group's salvo was anything from 4 to, I think some guys were salvo 8. I got 2 hangars on one salvo: the one I aimed for and an adjacent one that I had no intention of hitting. Can't recall the salvo . . . prob 6 or something like that. Was sort of funny.
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grouping the depots together would create large player groups working together to bomb them.
Way back when we had depots .............. <sigh>
They were never fully or properly implemented IMO.......just a few added to each map............. I would love to see a map where every town was replaced by a "depot" which served the local field no closer than a third of a sector away. GV fields & ports placed right next to their own depots (on the edge of).
We could have had some fantastic battles over depots allowing capture without the need for total field porkage.... more access to conflict and more land grab.......
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You would think the towns would be enough to fight over, and in the old days they were. Many time fields would get porked or fighter hangers dropped, but it was a continuing battle and things were never down long. Hangers were out of sequences, people would run supplies in, fights would be pushed out to the dar ring and then close back in as the hangers cycled through.
Today, the capture is far more important than the fight. Now they just roll in and flatten everything, capture the base, and move someplace else. People don't defend like they did before because they is no way to defend against the large hordes rolling in, so most rarely bother.
The strat should be fixed, only to make it a juicy target. That way it creates another place for combat to happen. If HTC said they would add the name of the squad to the web page each tour that had the most damage points at HQ for that tour, would we see a bigger push towards HQ. I would think ya might. :devil
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exactly fugitive by makeing these targets worth value it makes a incentive for the fight over them and now having a huge horde going for the strats would be a aircombat on a bombing run and not a hoing or vulching mission on a base
i have had so many people since this idea came up go yeah if they where worth something to me in form of points and value of hitting (where in hitting a base gives you a base toward a map win) they would join
but like others have said on here most strat runs don't start till you cap so close its just a small flight or they are only a small group of people that won't really do much damage to them
make them bigger for all i care or increase the damage per building thats fine be me just make it worth while so we have that option to do it
i had 5 kills in b24's yesterday the combat on teh ma map was tight and close i had fighters on my tail coming and going i ran across 2 sets of bombers and had bomber to bomber combat it was a amazing 40 min run that ended with me getting shot down while trying to land with a pilot wound i wasn't upset about one person who attacked me in the air but to attack a guy trying to take off or land is just rude IMO but if you give longer range targets this could be a constant thing
how great would it be to up toward a enemy strat system and run across another countries set of bombers and escorts doing the same thing
this can be soem epic fights not to mention when the escorts find it worth doing then the 163's and stuff not only become less effective against the bombers but will have better fights themselves
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If our map builders put towns right next to bases then porking the base and then covering it with a hard cap becomes a pre requisit to capture..............
As the town is placed further away then base porkage and the hard cap becomes less of a prerequisit for capture ........ and indeed less easy to maintain over both town and field at the same time
OK even given the above (I would agree) capture is easier if no one defends but so what? ..........hordes will always roll maps.......... but at least the chances are that anyone who wants to defend can at least get off the runway.........
If the town was over a third of a sector away then the linked field would benefit from a vehicle spawn to the town perimeter.......
Additionally all spawns would point to towns, GV fields and ports........focussing combat at the town or at a GV field........
I fully agree with the idea of bringing strat more into the game............... for me its too complex ( too vague in consequence) for many players (these days) to enjoy. I would just convert our present large city (with its various "industries") to a large set of "city" objects which are high scoring and affect rebuild times of every thing in proportion to the ratio of healthy "city objects" to total country assets.
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If our map builders put towns right next to bases then porking the base and then covering it with a hard cap becomes a pre requisit to capture..............
As the town is placed further away then base porkage and the hard cap becomes less of a prerequisit for capture ........ and indeed less easy to maintain over both town and field at the same time
Years ago we had one map wich was very exceptional in asmuch as the towns were very far away from the airfields.
The outcome: Indeed there was less need to flatten the field (see the other extreme on Ozkansas where base ack covers the town even!), but the towns fell much more often to surprise raids, as the defenders couldn't get to the town quick enough...
It's a mixed blessing.
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I fully agree with the idea of bringing strat more into the game............... for me its too complex ( too vague in consequence) for many players (these days) to enjoy. I would just convert our present large city (with its various "industries") to a large set of "city" objects which are high scoring and affect rebuild times of every thing in proportion to the ratio of healthy "city objects" to total country assets.
You were presenting some great alternatives to work with untill you fell back on what you would really like. Strategic choke points that globaly effect a country as punishment for not paying attention to them (your strategies to poofh their fun).
The success of the MA is due to it's unstructured chaos and serendipitous moments of quality fun. You cannot inject order to force the same players to have the fun you think they would enjoy the same as yourself. The moment you do that no one has fun but, they will all vote specificly against you for forceing it on them. They choose to sign up for special events after a long PR process. They come to the MA to not be bothered following any ones orders.
If you think strategic choke points are the ordered way to make the MA into a more fun place for everyone. Talk to the AvA guys about creating a test version of your strategic dream world and help PR players to sample it. Other wise you are asking HTC to shoot the goose becasue you have a dream an MA you think is better than theirs.
Equal ability to wage war at all times within ENY ( since Dover wanted to parse hairs over it).
When you stick to this princeple changes to the game seem narrow of scope and ineffectual to paradigm shifting. In the long run it allows time and the smallness of the change to protect the golden goose while players discover it's weaknesses and possibly evolve a new focus in the game play. The evolution is chaotic, organic, and player driven as a community. Not imposed by HTC as long as the primary rule survives it or we get ENY'd to control human nature.
Choke points are tools to "Force" players to play a certain way in response or loose their fun as a "punishment". All stick and no carrot. The MA tosses out stiicks and carrots equaly to everyone and leaves them alone.
Moving the towns sounded good. I was trying to understand how to keep Dover's crew from hoard NOEing your airfield and killing your hangers behind you while making you think the attack on the town was the real fight. Most players in the MA think in single moves and would fall for that for awhile.
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Years ago we had one map which was very exceptional in as much as the towns were very far away from the airfields.
The outcome: Indeed there was less need to flatten the field (see the other extreme on Ozkansas where base ack covers the town even!), but the towns fell much more often to surprise raids, as the defenders couldn't get to the town quick enough...
It's a mixed blessing.
Yes I remember this map........... the weird thing is that in some places the town was actually closer (or as close) to another field than it's linked field.....I think this is carrying it too far. Further the spawns on this maps still pointed at fields and not towns........ so there was a mix relating to the actual focus of battle....................any core philosophy of terrain game play can be poorly implemented.
which brings me to bustr
The whole point of my suggestion was to enable everyone access to combat...it does not matter (IMO) if a side is wining or losing as long as its players have access to combat. (indeed "equal" access to the war)
When a field is lost or gained the "front" would effectively move and the war would continue.............. no one is "punished" as you put it, one side wins bases the other loses bases .... each continue in perpetual conflict just as it does now until one side meets reset criteria. Rinse ....repeat.
Strategic targets should IMO play their part (in influencing the land grab) without denying access to combat................
The detailia of this could work in many ways but I would like to see them greatly simplified
In one example
Where by strats are reduced to a massive city and city health has a relationship to rebuild times which in particular would be town object rebuild times. Field assets could be modelled to rebuild (normally) quite quickly such that city health did not disastrously make hanger/ammo/supply/radar rebuild times extend to unplayable periods. Nominal town object rebuild times could either be set to the present #Min's or even have a different multiplier used for their ratio of proportionality. (the devil is in the maths detail).
Here the maths gets a bit more complex but the base concept of more city damage (less city health) = longer rebuild times remains the same.
using a ratio of 1:(1/#%)^.5 (#=%city health)
50% damage (50% health) = rebuild time x 1.414
66% damage (34% health)= rebuild time x 1.73
75% damage (25% health)= rebuild time x 2
90% damage (10% health)= rebuild time x 3.16
99% damage (1% health)= rebuild time x 10
You will note the relationship is exponential and the new Cities are actually massive and the above would apply to the whole city not just its present "factory" targets and the "inner city". In practice city rebuild times even as long as 3 hours would mean massive sustained raids would have to be required to produce a level of damage that is greatly over 75% However if this regularly occurs and becomes too unbalancing because cities suddenly become key gameplay targets then HTC could modify the ratio maths
using a ratio of 1:(1/#%)^.2
50% damage (50% health) = rebuild time x 1.15
66% damage (34% health)= rebuild time x 1.25
75% damage (25% health)= rebuild time x 1.32
90% damage (10% health)= rebuild time x 1.59
99% damage (1% health)= rebuild time x 2.5
So what you see above is actually a very simple strategic attrition model where there is a relation ship between city attrition and rebuild time. A model that can be tuned to meet the gameplay that evolves from its implementation ( the proportionality integer being an arena setting (^.#) adjusted until the best balance is achieved in game. As above we could have two such settings in the arena settings being one for field assets (hangers etc) and another for town objects.
The above is an example of how such a philosophy could be implemented. Its not a thousand miles away from what we do now and it can be tuned to meet the requirements of gameplay.
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ThunderEgg's bomber missions where probably the best fun I've had in this game. We always found something to talk about. The occasional skirmishes where really a blood pumper. :P