Aces High Bulletin Board
Special Events Forums => Scenario General => Topic started by: Guppy35 on October 29, 2016, 10:38:54 PM
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With the preface that I go back a ways with scenarios to the Airwarrior days, I've been thinking about what they have morphed into and I'm not sure it's been a good thing.
First things first. The twelve hour bit. I think it has it's place, but I don't think it's really a scenario. Nef named it right and I think it should be separate from the traditional idea of a scenario. Target for Today makes sense. Once a year maybe as something different, but it lacks what at least for me is part of the uniqueness of scenarios and that's the build up and the ongoing planning and adjusting that go into a multi-frame scenario. For me, that's a lot of the fun, in the chatter back and forth between sides and the chance to play with the history in the interim between frames. It's not so much of an endurance test.
The reality to me is I'm not sure that traditional scenarios can keep going with the numbers and the other events that get everyone together.
FSO has really superseded Scenarios as the activity of choice I think and it's much more of a get together with your buddies, fly on Fridays and have a good time.
But again, that's not what scenarios used to be to me anyway. I don't remember scenarios where it was a given that squaddies always flew together. In fact it was a chance to fly with other folks outside of your comfort zone and expand the friendships within the game.
To be honest I'm not sure where I'm going with this other then expressing the feeling that something is missing from the scenario experience and I'm not sure how to get it back. And maybe that's just me, but it sure doesn't feel the same and I miss that.
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I am sorry to agree with you Guppy. Unfortunately times change and as instant gratification has become more important then historical battle the scenarios feel more like Melee arena fights.
Planning is important in all scenarios. All who have CO'd scenarios have done a great job. I applaud their stepping up to lead. The surprise is gone. Targets are listed and fewer in number.
To me like playing in a band box. Finding the enemy now is less work. When a time frame has been given in which to hit a target now, and which targets are to be hit this lessens the immersion
but for those who like instant action it is fun. One used to be able to make the enemy guess where you may be attacking and from which direction you will be coming from. Launch windows
prohibit that. OK boys you have an hour to go to and get back. This is just mho. Majority should rule. Scenarios in the not to distant past have been fun for planning without time constraints on launch windows.
I've got a huge patch collection from past scenarios. I used to look forward to them. Sorry to say I don't anymore. I realize there must be time constraints. One hour is way to short and fewer targets take less planning.
Brooke is now limited in what he can do. And after reading the Axis boards, even winning the scenario, there was more whining then I've ever seen by the winning team. Now it's more about score.
I'm taking a break from scenarios. And no I'm not whining. The majority should always rule and I guess I'm not in the majority. Remember it's about fun. Also unfortunately attendance in Scenarios is falling
off. Would be a good idea to find out why. Brooke thank you for your efforts. If I were you I'd pass the duty along to someone who thinks they could do better. Seems by reading the boards the Axis had quite a few
that thought they could. Let them have at it. Take a break. Let the kids have at it. After reading the "please rate the Tunisia Scenario" topic it fortified my thoughts. Comments from the axis were of little help in
rectifying the situation. It more or less was a list of complaints. Just like mine :D
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With the preface that I go back a ways with scenarios to the Airwarrior days, I've been thinking about what they have morphed into and I'm not sure it's been a good thing.
I've been here in Aces High since 2000. 16 years now. I've been aware of or participated in every Aces High scenario since it's inception. I was not part of AW online although I did play AW3 offline, I bought the AW3 game package in 1998 or 99.
First things first. The twelve hour bit. I think it has it's place, but I don't think it's really a scenario.
Because? 12 hour bit? Did I put any less time in than any other scenario designer? Not pleased with that description.
Nef named it right and I think it should be separate from the traditional idea of a scenario. Target for Today makes sense. Once a year maybe as something different, but it lacks what at least for me is part of the uniqueness of scenarios and that's the build up and the ongoing planning and adjusting that go into a multi-frame scenario. For me, that's a lot of the fun, in the chatter back and forth between sides and the chance to play with the history in the interim between frames. It's not so much of an endurance test.
How was the few month build up, on private forum and group forums of Target for Today or Tunisia 2016 different from any scenario held within the last 16 years of Aces High. Please elaborate.
Scenarios have been the same time apart, Nothing has changed in regards to time and date apart really. Frequency has remained the same really, not much has changed.
So then... Besides the 3-4 frame Saturdays and the adjusting, What has changed? You said yourself... As far a descriptions and the actual setups, not much has changed. Target for Today and Tunisia had weeks of planning and team building on private forums. How was this different than any other scenario in the last 16 years?
The reality to me is I'm not sure that traditional scenarios can keep going with the numbers and the other events that get everyone together.
Traditional 3-4 frame scenarios have been tried every year for 16 years with the exception of TFT and Tunisia and numbers peaked around 2008-2011.
FSO has really superseded Scenarios as the activity of choice I think and it's much more of a get together with your buddies, fly on Fridays and have a good time
Yeah, well that comes back to private forums and weeks of planning. I am personally having the most fun I've ever had in AH in FSO and have been for the last 8 years or more with the 412th. FSO has set rules, while scenarios have rules that change typically every setup and seem to become an issue every scenario.
But again, that's not what scenarios used to be to me anyway. I don't remember scenarios where it was a given that squaddies always flew together. In fact it was a chance to fly with other folks outside of your comfort zone and expand the friendships within the game.
Is this the only thing scenarios have really going for them? I can expect to fly with people I don't typically fly with?
To be honest I'm not sure where I'm going with this other then expressing the feeling that something is missing from the scenario experience and I'm not sure how to get it back. And maybe that's just me, but it sure doesn't feel the same and I miss that.
Well.. I am too. Been missing it since people felt that reenacting Air Warrior events and recreating Scenario Teams thought that was what people were missing. Time to move on and I will do whatever it takes to do so.
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Don't misunderstand me Nef in reference to the 12 hour event. I think it is unique and different then a scenario and deserves a signature of its own, which is why "Target for Today" was such a perfect title. In my mind lumping something that different under the scenario tag, is a dissservice to its uniqueness.
When I referenced planning it meant what goes on in the week after a frame. That can't happen in a single day event. A month and then some to get into all the aspects of a scenario isn't something that can happen when it's all done in one day. It's there and it's gone.
Again maybe it's all just me, but I thought it might generate some discussion
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I've been hearing about events in Air Warrior for the last 16 years I've been playing Aces High. Entire CM Scenario Teams and Scenario "Guilds" were built to recreate the glory days of Air Warrior.
I'm frankly tired of it.
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Bringing wants and issues with scenario layouts and planning isn't a bad thing (if done properly) and issues will happen as they are complicated beasts. If you feel you have an idea that would work for a scenario from my understanding anyone can submit a scenario. If you want to take it one step further you could volunteer to become a CM.
This has been my third scenario and each has been different than the last. I have really enjoyed each one and appreciate all of the hard work and time that the CM's put in. They are doing something unique and awesome for this community and put up with a lot of drama.
Some of that drama can be expected since what they are dealing with trying to balance something that cannot be balanced unless both sides fly the same plane set.
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I've been hearing about events in Air Warrior for the last 16 years I've been playing Aces High. Entire CM Scenario Teams and Scenario "Guilds" were built to recreate the glory days of Air Warrior.
I'm frankly tired of it.
Sniffle.
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The reality to me is I'm not sure that traditional scenarios can keep going with the numbers and the other events that get everyone together.
FSO has really superseded Scenarios as the activity of choice I think and it's much more of a get together with your buddies, fly on Fridays and have a good time.
It took you this long to figure these 2 facts out?
Well said Nefarious.
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something is missing from the scenario experience
About 200 players.
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Seriously curious about this because I've never really heard a great explanation, but what made AW scenarios great?
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Brooke is now limited in what he can do. And after reading the Axis boards, even winning the scenario, there was more whining then I've ever seen by the winning team. Now it's more about score.
Hajo, what you read in the Axis forum gives you none of the context needed to make that assessment correctly. The issues were discussed at length during our planning meetings going into the event. The fact that the Axis won does not diminish the fact that there were serious problems in the write-up which could have affected the scenario had the score been closer. This is not "whining" over ticky-tack items, but a call for more transparency in designs going forward.
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Seriously curious about this because I've never really heard a great explanation, but what made AW scenarios great?
:old:
Different world, different era, different conditions.
Here you had an online flight simulator that was populated with players you really don't have today. "We" are now old. We grew up on board games, playing outside, dice games like Risk and Dungeons and Dragons. There was more imagination put into those types of games as you didn't have the eye candy that comes with the new generation of games. This changes, dramatically, the feel and immersion of an event.
The graphics were crap, but it was amazing to "see" the enemy instead of imagine the enemy. Role playing games required in depth detail and description to play with any success. We were used to lengthy descriptions, detailed plans and maps. For those who don't know how complex old Non Electronic role playing games were, we plotted maps, took notes, drafted detail upon detail.
Naturally, those components transferred to flight sims like Air Warrior. The scenarios were far more complex and detailed. I remember a very long time ago that we were preparing for a particularly grueling event, might have been Ploesti if memory serves, and we were figuring out how many bombers we needed. We identified each object that was a target and listed how much damage it took. Took each fighter plane up and Flossy sat in it while I sat behind it taking single shots, ping, ping, ping until the bomber blew up. We did this dozens of times to see exactly how much ordinance was needed to take out the bomber. We then calculated results from typical fights that we gleaned from historical logs, we knew average hit percentages. We knew how many shots were fired and how many hit, so we calculated the percentage of fighters that could logically be expected to be take down a bomber stream in live action conditions. We looked at attrition rate, how many fighters succeeded getting through defenses. From this, we derived the number of planes in the air we needed. Then, after the event was balanced, we let the players have at it and it was up to them to succeed or fail, not the rules.
Just so you know, this is also Exactly what Nef and I did on the last 12 hour event that resulted in a dead heat for 12 straight hours and the very last mission at the very last possible moment determined who won. The opposition was literally minutes away from preventing it, a minor stagger in the launch of their defenses changed the outcome. That was one of the best scenarios I have ever seen unfold. No, it wasn't a "standard" template scenario, but it had all of the elements. Detailed design, months of planning and team building, drawn maps, training sessions, and everything that makes an event successful. It was simply fun.
There is nothing wrong with the way Air Warrior did it's events. Nothing wrong with Aces High events. This is just a new era, new tools, new graphics, and new type of game play. I get it, I enjoy it, but the detail into the design is still no less vital than it was then. We don't turn out for practices. We used to practice several times a night. We don't do complex mission plans. We don't get as active on the boards. But this is just how things are for the moment. There is far more going on in the world and far more options for entertainment. Back then, an Air Warrior scenario was a Major Event and was part of a culture, that's what we did. That was our game, our recreation, our entertainment. We simply put far more into it than is done now. That is both good and bad, many of us are in better shape than we were sitting on our butts every single night for 5 hours :) Times change. The immersion is what I miss the most. The build up to the event was as much a part of the event as the saturday afternoon battle was, if not more. The training, drilling, practice sessions was where we built teams and got to know the other players and have turned into friendships that span continents. Point and Click simply does not generate that type of immersion. Time marches on, things change, we adapt. We are populating a game with players who don't know what it's like to not have a TV, a computer, a smart phone, games and information 24/7 at your finger tips. The imagination is being eroded away, I don't know what's going to come of it, it's just different.
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The imagination is being eroded away, I don't know what's going to come of it, it's just different.
Do not fear Roc! There are some of us that still have the vivid imagination for scenarios!
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The 1 day scenario and modifications of it will be the scenario of the future...kinds like this day in ww2 with players and side planning :noid
Unless we get the player base up into the 500s...it will be the same 60 or so of us squeaking at eachother over convoluted scoring and unbalnced plane sets for years to come...I hope at least :uhoh
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.it will be the same 60 or so of us squeaking at eachother over convoluted scoring and unbalnced plane sets for years to come...I hope at least
Haha I hope so! At least one thing is for sure, if we didn't care about the events, we wouldn't care about the design.
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I don't care for the times scenarios begin since the strokes...
I can rarely can last past 0700 cst
But that is just me and I don't wish ya'll change the
time just for my sake ! I keep watching the scenario
board just in case I manage to stay up anyway
:o
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ROC I do know times have changed as you pointed out and I did so in my opinion in this post also. The numbers of participants in Scenarios has dropped greatly we know this for a fact.
I used to see KOOL and others involved in scenarios hoping that what we experienced back in the day would still be possible. ROC I also read as you know the bickering and complaining
in the Axis posts. I saw the same in the general scenario posts and those just on this past scenario about scoring and people being accused of foul play. Indeed the world has changed. I agree.
Has it been for better or worse? The only evidence I have is the large decrease in numbers involved in scenarios. The "dumbing down" so to speak. This in effort to get more involved.
This is in no defense of Brooke, he doesn't need any. He worked his arse off to get people interested and registered. For that he should be applauded. What I saw was akin to a bunch of old hens
squeaking about the whole affair. This seems to be the norm now. Didn't used to be. Now accusations about scoring and loadouts fly freely around here. Pity. To many children and not enough
adults involved anymore. At this point it doesn't matter to me. I am taking a break from the game and I know that my participation in future Scenarios is done. This will be of little or no consequence
to the future of AH. I often wonder why participation in the game has decreased as well. Generational change. Hope the game makes it. The scenarios at this rate won't. Not fun for me anymore.
Not worth my time when I have other things to do that are more enjoyable.
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Sorry to see you taking a break Hajo, but what some see as bickering, others see as important. There were issues in advance that were brought up in a healthy discussion, no bickering. There were some absolutes that were brought up and I was told flat out the objects were not counted with as much detail as I do but he felt it was close enough and ok. I told him outright he needed to count again, as I had already counted them. Dismissed. Well, there you go. If you see this as whining, that's not something I can fix. There were some who worked just as tirelessly as Brooke to promote and encourage participation as well as improve the design. Much of which would have been even good for your side. Now, yes the Axis won, that is irrelevant, there were some serious breaches in that event that cannot occur if people are going to trust that their month of training, mission prep and immersion in the event won't simply be upended at the last minute. You want less instant gratification but you are bemoaning our efforts to make sure that the detail is something we can TRUST to the point that we are willing to invest a great deal of time and energy, like it was in the past.
You can't have both. You can't simply shrug off lack of detail and balance then expect people to invest time in preparation if the CM on duty is just going to toss it in the air. Not when these issues were discussed in advance, not when the problems were shown, not when we knew how badly it could go and try to prevent it. You were not part of the discussion on our side with Brooke, for you to now relegate this to whining is a bit of a shame.
Did you not realize we had a nuclear option that was built into the design that we chose not to use? You think you guys got beat, but we didn't do what we could have done, and planned for as a possibility. This event was designed so that we could have easily, yes easily, ignored the Allied first attack completely, and hovered off your fields while you returned from your triumphant assault. Then immediately set a cap over your fields and you wouldn't have gotten in the air for the next 11 hours. Our targets were your launch fields. Half our fighters and a few attack planes just sitting over you, popping you as you take off and blow your launch window, we get free reign over the targets, what a lovely day that would have been for you :) We thought about it, there is no way you could have stopped it. There was the absolute potential for you guys to do the same. Now, you could have gotten into the ground guns and shot us, but wait...flight was disabled. There was no ground defense available at all during that event. None. Although the comments from Brooke when we discussed the capping fields was that ground guns would prevent that. But wait..he disabled flight, didn't disable planes so no ground guns were available. These things matter.
If I spend a month planning for something and then changes are made that are uncovered during the event, it makes me just want to not bother planning for a damned thing and showing up on game day to figure out what to do. Kinda throws out the whole reason for immersion and mission planning, doesn't it? We plan a mission for a certain result and the result is not there. Why plan?
Whining?
Could have just as easily won and walked away trying to fix nothing. I do wonder, if we had capped your fields and blocked you as the event design allowed, would you be whining right about now about it? Or perhaps you would not think it whining but a serious concern that needed to be addressed?
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Brooke is now limited in what he can do. And after reading the Axis boards, even winning the scenario, there was more whining then I've ever seen by the winning team. Now it's more about score.
I don't remember reading any whining. I remember a team seeing what they considered issues and because of those issues anticipating getting plastered in the points. I think you will find that very clear in the text. Even with that fully in mind they showed up!
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I can understand folks looking at the score after the fact and looking at our boards before the score was posted...it was pretty bleak on the axis side one week before the event started. I had JG77 and JG 2 I had three F8s and no GL I had two 110s and only one game day. I had 5total flyers for my 88s no GL for jg53 or 9 Group and I had half of each registered with no ideas as to who if or when these folks would show up. I had two full groups of 38s driven by excellent pilots a group of spits headed by the wiliest of Aussies and an almost full group of A20s who if given 5mins over targets could kill my entire task group in one run....not to mention your P40s and 39s I felt like a German general in Berlin in 1945 and here come the Russians...my only hope that I could see was to mass my forces leave my bombers and hope to god I could kill enough guys to offset the points I thought y'all would make. And then game day happened and blew me away. Anything else you see is me as a new CO raising issues that need to be resolved for upcoming scenarios. It's hard to relay in text what is was like to see the scores hell I couldn't believe how the day progressed. If anyone and I mean anyone has any questions about how or why I did something please feel free to ask I'll tell you why and how. I'm not just another whiney kid who only cares about winning. One thing I stressed when it was brought up was capping fields I would not do it I wouldn't deny folks who had come to fly the chance to not even get in the air. While I may not see eye to eye with each and everyone of you in this game were all in this fishbowl together because we love to be here so I salute each and everyone of you no matter what I may say or do I love getting to fly with and against all of you. Roen/Vudu15
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