Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: FiLtH on May 07, 2014, 01:01:58 AM
-
For those of you who remember back that far, it seemed as though a handful of people could take down a town, and capture the field. Some people complained about this and over time it got to where it is now. Back then even though maps flowed quickly, and bases were taken easily when not opposed, it had the effect of spreading out the players. Many bases were flashing, you could get involved in many 1v1 , 2v2 fights.
Since the change Ive noticed a "flocking" to a base, by the majority of the players. It seems necessary to have that many people to take a base, because they have alot of targets. Any given night you can log on and see the map, and usually the majority of the players are at 2 bases, either defending a base against one enemy, or all at another enemy's base trying to take it.
Probably many people like this. Target rich and all that. Myself, I preferred the old way, where the fights were spread thin, but memorable. By making it easier to take bases with fewer people, fewer people were at one base, it spread it out across the map, creating smaller engagements, which to me was much more enjoyable.
I was just thinking about this stuff tonight while I was sitting in the tower, with the 1000 yard stare at the map again.
-
I think the game is better :old:
Dont sit in the tower up a set of bombers and prep the map :old:
-
Way way back we did not have a town. The map room was in the middle of the field and the only way to capture was to fly a C47 in (or LVT from the CV, but no M3s).
GVs have changed the land-grab game considerably. A 1-3 players trying to take off from a CAPed field can be suppressed by a handful of attacking fighters. 1-3 players rolling M3s and Wirbs again and again is a nightmare. A single M3 can undo many lbs of bombs on the town and acks and taking the town down with guns require lots of manpower. A single Wirble is a huge threat to fighters unless someone has kept a bomb for such an occasion. A single tank can roll all the way into town with the fighters powerless to stop it, unless they get lucky enough and de-track it by strafing far from the town. Even if they disable its turret is can still kill troops with the parallel mg.
The answer is to kill the VH on the base and all nearby bases that can spawn into the attacked field. Have a few attackers with bombs hunt down the tanks/M3/wirbs that already spawned. Kill the acks and keep a tight vulch + CAP against fighters from nearby fields, or kill ALL hangars (both FH and BH). All this require a very large force - a.k.a a horde.
The other option is to overrun the field with friendly tanks, but I never managed to take off in a tank. Something must be off with my throttle because I cannot reach 80-100 mph to lift off.
-
As Filth is observing, today 3 or 4 players cannot really target a field in terms of dropping VH and supplies at all linked support fields. Then get the town down along with pacifying uppers or local GV's if the VH is missed. The town buildings get out of sync quickly relative to the amount of time it takes for transit and simply accomplishing base capture prep chores. Even the local FH and VH often are out of sync while so few players are muddeling through getting everything prepped.
Today there are so many links in the chain to capturing anything, you are seeing a passive laziness in players because capture has evolved just into that realm of complexity which doesn't fit into the "FUN" of playing this game as often as it used to. We all spend 8 hours before logging into this game "Working". There are becoming times now the game in terms of capture, is us paying Hitech so we can work a second job. You no longer hear players getting fired up about going somewhere and capturing or taking a base away from the other guys. It's a lot of work now and not always very satisfying. And this has a chilling effect on newbies who are the most vocal cheer leaders for "common guys lets go get them". To which often silence or lame comments to distract them.
There have been no real POSTS lately complaining about hoards and base capture. Or map steam rolling. Why?? Because now you need 30 or 40 guys to capture a base and you feel lucky getting them interested.
When you actually get two bases these day exactly a single sector apart, the transit time is just perfect for furballing or some white knuckle attack and defense attempts at capture. At 1.5 to 2 sectors like a number of the maps seem to be spaced. Players get bored by the transit time and uninspired to go at it against the idea of just sitting there for that long doing nothing. In some cases you can get into action faster driving GV these days even if it's into a camped spawn. At least someone is shooting at you inside of 5 seconds opposed to 10 and 15 minute transits. And if after 10 minutes you die in 30 seconds, well now that's another 10 minutes getting bum sores riding your computer chair.
I can feel for the furballers and their wish to repeal the 12 hours side switching rule. One of the biggest things that bores my squad and other Knights I talk to these days, is how long it takes to get anywhere. The two maps with TT and and airfields at each corner of the triangle, have the best transit times for air combat of our maps.
-
:old: The big gameplay change I think was the AAA getting deadlier or/and the nutering of 50 cal planes as de-ackers. In the old days (tm) there was no ack hiding, you had to fight your way back to the runway. :old:
-
I see what OP is saying -even if i wasnt there at that time- BUT considering low pop times inbalance,
it would be imho an error to go back to the old version : if a "handfull" could take an AF+town, then a specific side with only 15
more players during low-pop could finish a whole map alone in 2-3h, which would make other sides players rage-quit, as they couldnt stop them...
My 2 cts.
-
I agree in that before the changes to the town, 10 people could take a base in no time. Five could if they had some luck. Now it takes 20+ to have any real chance during peak times, and even then it requires a little luck.
I can also see both sides of the argument and am not sure which is more valid. Life is busy for many of us and even medium sized squad find it hard to successfully take a base without help from outside the squad.
That being said, I don't think town percentages will be changing as the next release appears to have an entirely new setup for towns. We will see how it works out. I can hear the :x already.
-
Half the hording though is done and the town is never touched. Cap the base, de-ack the field and blow up anything that takes off. Not much game play in that.
-
I remember when we could sneak to a base, destroy what was needed and capture the field with three guys: One or two heavy 110G-2's and a C47. The 110's could even cap the field for uppers and the C47 had to be quickly in place to drop the goons.
Today it takes at least three guys to take a base. One skilful bomber formation can white-flag a town in two passes, six minutes. Would that make the buildings pop up out of synch? Another bomber or a heavy attacker can take care of the VH and capping and the third guy will bring the goons in.
Of course, in both cases any enemy activity will reduce the success percentage. Then again, a couple of escort fighters would raise the number of missionaires to a horde of five...
-
I remember when we could sneak to a base, destroy what was needed and capture the field with three guys: One or two heavy 110G-2's and a C47. The 110's could even cap the field for uppers and the C47 had to be quickly in place to drop the goons.
Today it takes at least three guys to take a base. One skilful bomber formation can white-flag a town in two passes, six minutes. Would that make the buildings pop up out of synch? Another bomber or a heavy attacker can take care of the VH and capping and the third guy will bring the goons in.
Of course, in both cases any enemy activity will reduce the success percentage. Then again, a couple of escort fighters would raise the number of missionaires to a horde of five...
The problem with that is you have to have some skilled players. You know guys that can bomb or fight long enough to get the troops in. Players aren't afraid to fail on a mission now and then.
-
The problem with that is you have to have some skilled players. You know guys that can bomb or fight long enough to get the troops in. Players aren't afraid to fail on a mission now and then.
Huh? I'm sorry, sir, but this community doesn't seem to know what it wants! Every time a new guy says hello on this forum, everyone will tell about the steep learning curve of this game. Every new guy will very soon find out there's lots to learn. We even have a Training Arena including trainers! Why should the base capture be in arcade mode if the aerial combat is based on realistic flying and damage modelling?
-
Open an "AH Nostalgia Arena", complete with some of the old maps we never see anymore, and the old style base-taking motif. I'll bet it would see a lot more activity than some of the current arenas (such as WW1, although I love the WW1 arena).
-
I like it much better the way it is now.
-
I also like it better now......... a chatroom with a cartoon war in the background
-
I think the game is better :old:
Dont sit in the tower up a set of bombers and prep the map :old:
Wow. Would hate to see what worse looked like in this regard.
No heartburn with the intensity on a map proportional to player size, but having 1+ base per player on average is a little strange. It certainly slows down the dynamics of the place.
One of the fun things about Brand X was seeing the front move back and forth relatively rapidly. It was fun.
-
I'm thinking about Filth's thinking...no I'm not having filthy thoughts.....Filth Might be on to something. 9900.
-
We have gone from hoards attacking and taking fields to hoards of fighters hiding above 15k from getting shot by counter ACM. We have gone from simple to capture fields with a hand full of players bumping heads against a hand full of defenders spaced around the map. To needing almost all of the players logged in for your country to capture a single field maybe after 2-3 hours with long transit times to get back to the action. And about 1\3 of those getting bored hiding in GV for the rest of the evening. Not sure how many just log off out of boredom.
Almost seems like the sectors should be reduced in size to 20mile x 20mile to get players back at each other sooner than later. Lately I've been performing a test in large furballs. At 10k I will see how long I can fly straight and level before something try's to pick me. Then see how little effort I need to make in avoiding their shot. More often it takes a while to get attacked unless a small hoard of HOers on every pass without fail to get rid of my (hoard of 1) isn't flocking to the single level flying guy. Then unless it's a veteran player, showing skill at not getting picked, quickly causes the picker to climb back up and look for easier prey. I've flown through furballs recently performing this test where I RTB'd bingo fuel and all of my ammo.
Hitech once changed the game because he saw how hoards avoided each other and the resultant amount of real combat in the arena suffered for that avoidance. So one might say that was horizontal avoidance of conflict. Now we have achieved vertical avoidance of conflict to which 1.5 and 2 sector base spacing has a positive or negative influence depending on what you are using altitude for.
And when POTW decides to fly high altitude fighter sweeps into these 15k and above hoards to furball at alt. Many run away and avoid conflict. Conflict avoidance unfortunately dictates a lot of our game play.
-
Huh? I'm sorry, sir, but this community doesn't seem to know what it wants! Every time a new guy says hello on this forum, everyone will tell about the steep learning curve of this game. Every new guy will very soon find out there's lots to learn. We even have a Training Arena including trainers! Why should the base capture be in arcade mode if the aerial combat is based on realistic flying and damage modelling?
I think you miss understood me. I agree that taking a base with a few skilled players isn't all that hard. What is hard is convincing the "horde" that it IS possible, and more often than not a lot more fun than just being the 5th guy in on the ord bunker.
The Mafia was a big squad and we could get 20+ players on for a squad night often. Instead of hitting one base with the full force we would split it and hit a number of bases. 8 players hit one, 8 another, the last 4 deacking the next field on the list. The two teams of 8 would compete against each other seeing which could capture the base first, if at all. It was great fun, and more often than not created 3 different fighting areas. Now and then one would turn into a furball and all base taking stopped until the furball died :joystick: Then it was back to the next set of bases.
Back then you saw more people playing for their SQUAD more than you did for a "country". Some were great at taking bases, some at defending, some for just dropping everything to help out at one thing or another. You could name off a dozen squads easy off the top of your head by how active they were in the arenas. These squad drove the game play. Now squads aren't that big a deal. Join the next horde is the main plan and roll another base. Doesn't matter if you get bombs off, shoot someone down in a cap, or even get a vulch or two, as long as you were there and "part of the team" :rolleyes:
I think the resupply to repair the town hurts more than helps. Now a single guy can defeat a small group capture just by running supplies in at the right time. They don't even need "defense" any more just ore supplies. The logical move would be to split that horde up and send a couple guys to pork the troops/supplies at all the bases that are close/spawn in to the one under attack, but again, that takes planing, coordination, and dare I say it...... skill :D
-
+1
-
i remember when bases had puffy :O
-
Fugi,
It takes time from getting your vulch on or being safe in the hoard.
Complexity in this game does not attract players to indulge mental nuance because this is not online chess for the masters. The number of tiny factors to account for at all times during a capture attempt that have been introduced in redent years. May well be too far past the complexity tolerance and frustration threshold of todays average player in our game. But, they do attract the risk averse greifer since it's intoxicating to screw over 30 guys by dropping a single box of supplies. And an M3 with supplies is more effective against a base take than diving in with a fighter to be slaughtered by that hoard padding their landed kills message. So who wants to waste all that effort to get screwed by a single M3?
Base takes are funny cat like creatures in their attention span and motivation. 30 guys can loose all of their steam when the town ack suddenly comes up after they abused that town for the last 40 minutes. Then you can watch the attack become flaccid as more guys fail to return with more ords to rework it back to the peak of the take moment. You see this around the arena as a general attitude these days over many activities which have become a tad more complex with the evolution of our game.
Wining is it's own reward. Too much uncertainty and complexity standing in the way of wining is not attractive as a challenge to the 80%ers. And they are who you need to attract to your initiatives when you want to take real-estate in this game. Or keep under 12k if you don't want to spend all night flying in circles wondering when they will come down and play.
-
I was here in 2002.
Re-set happened when 1 country was reduced to 1 field. Sometimes, it was a race between 2 countries.
Much fun.
-
Fugi,
It takes time from getting your vulch on or being safe in the hoard.
Complexity in this game does not attract players to indulge mental nuance because this is not online chess for the masters. The number of tiny factors to account for at all times during a capture attempt that have been introduced in redent years. May well be too far past the complexity tolerance and frustration threshold of todays average player in our game. But, they do attract the risk averse greifer since it's intoxicating to screw over 30 guys by dropping a single box of supplies. And an M3 with supplies is more effective against a base take than diving in with a fighter to be slaughtered by that hoard padding their landed kills message. So who wants to waste all that effort to get screwed by a single M3?
Base takes are funny cat like creatures in their attention span and motivation. 30 guys can loose all of their steam when the town ack suddenly comes up after they abused that town for the last 40 minutes. Then you can watch the attack become flaccid as more guys fail to return with more ords to rework it back to the peak of the take moment. You see this around the arena as a general attitude these days over many activities which have become a tad more complex with the evolution of our game.
Wining is it's own reward. Too much uncertainty and complexity standing in the way of wining is not attractive as a challenge to the 80%ers. And they are who you need to attract to your initiatives when you want to take real-estate in this game. Or keep under 12k if you don't want to spend all night flying in circles wondering when they will come down and play.
Thats where those old squads were far superior to todays. Today a player puts up a squad and says "join my squad, it will be cool!". In the old days squads were some what selective, they trained players so that they could count on them to accomplish their part of the mission, in some cases they even spent time practicing those fundamentals. Being part of a squad didn't mean you were hanging with the "cool guys", it meant you were on a close knit team that had skills and whether it was important to you or not other players KNEW these squads and the players in them due to these skills. A case in point that many STILL remember, the LTAR's. They were the best ground pounders this game has ever seen. Name one other that was even close... I know I can't.
Sure there is lots to learn in this game, but that is what makes it such a great game. Picture a game of 7 card stud. All the possibilities, the combinations, the possible bluffs, the pressure of betting, body language, learning "tells". Now picture the same game with unlimited numbers of Aces. Same game, but wheres the fun in the second version?
-
I remember when there was nO map room...sept 56 I think
-
+1 vote on missing the old ways long gone. I miss getting with about half dozen and flying NOE around dar circles just to sneak an airfield way in the back corner of the map. It didnt serve much purpose, but it was fun nevertheless.
Mindanao and the uterus map were my favorites
-
I miss when fighter squadrons flew around running into enemy fighter squadrons and base capture was something players did when they got bored of that. There's only couple of MA fighter squadrons now. Most players now it seems aren't in squads and if they are they don't fly as squads, or they're base capture squads. I attribute the mentality that invented the term pick to this general change in how players use the MA.
-
I doubt subtle changes in the process will scare away players. I suspect changes to influence what they end up focusing on as normal game play will not be noticed as much as they will return to the well for the fun factor. Reducing the size of sectors or moving bases closer together, both will shorten transit time.
This latest fad in furballing since last year's fall grosse slauge at 30k over Europe, furballing around the bomber streams, has gotta get under control. Eventually the hoard comes down below 12k and everyone furballs. Until then, the alt heroes mill around up there wasting everyone's evening including their own. You have about 3 good hours of prime time with bodies in the arena, and then everyone gets called in for bed at the same time. Then the late nighters tend to rely less on alt because half are busy trying to sneek fields while the other half just want to get at them and defend the field of fight.
Many of the vets in this game won't waste the time trying to get above 12k during prime time. Many of the newer players hide above 12k thinking they will get lucky picking and running. So now we have vertical conflict avoidance. It influences everything including how long it takes to get back at a field being worked for a capture.
Something subtle in the process needs to change to help funnel bodies closer to each other sooner.
-
This latest fad in furballing since last year's fall grosse slauge at 30k over Europe, furballing around the bomber streams...
I wish there was any truth to that.
-
Something subtle in the process needs to change to help funnel bodies closer to each other sooner.
-
I was here in 2002.
Re-set happened when 1 country was reduced to 1 field. Sometimes, it was a race between 2 countries.
Much fun.
That part I do not miss. Win conditions are much better now in terms of gameplay. I hated the siege phase on the last few fields.