Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: VanceVP on March 23, 2017, 06:15:35 PM
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I got away from AH when AHIII came out cause I didn't have a machine that would handle it.
I am thinking about building a new machine, but I would be interested in knowing for AHIII has the same kind of numbers on at any given time that was on with AHII?
I am particularly interested in GV'ing.
I don't want to spend a bucket full of $$$'s on a new machine then find out that there are only a handful of people playing the game and 99% of them flying.
What is the general consensus of those who are playing the game on a regular basis these days?
thanks in advance
VanceVP
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EST Time - Mornings through mid afternoon approx 40-60 players total in MA. Evenings 150-210ish.
I just came back after a ten year break and don't regret the grand + I spent on a new PC. You can always find something to attack or defend, and during the less busy times I take that opportunity to fly early war aircraft or pound the strats.
Only thing I find lacking is mission participation. In the 2 months that i've been back i've only seen 1 night where large numbers participated in back to back missions. Most of the time your lucky to get 1 or 2 to join.
GVing is definitely there. We stole four bases this afternoon with vehicle warfare only. Come on back, it's good fun!
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Hi Vancypants hehe---today at noon 78 people--right now 7:12 pm cdt-thursday MAR 23 170 people only 7 maps available so far some more GV favorable but all have gv fighting.you have my number call me
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Low number times there are definitely more GV people around. I guess it's from the hawks leaving the grouse alone :angel:
Compared to other WWII venues? Yeah AH still has waay more in one arena at any given time.
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I will say is more action with a minor increase of players.
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About a week or two ago (pretty sure it was 2 weeks ago), when I had logged in to the game, across all the different arenas it was pushing close to 400 +/- online at the same time
About 240 or 260 in the Main arena, around 171? in the SEA and several others in the Free and Dueling arenas...
I even made several comments about it once I got in the Main arena, right before I had to get ready for FSO....
It's been a good while, since I've seen a night ( US prime time EST ) with over 400 people online at same time
Hopefully players new and old keep coming/coming back
Our old Damned squad has recently had 2 more old timers return and others are talking about it....
I hope it's the same way with all the other squadrons in AH... The Damned have had about 4 to 6 come back in the last few months
Keep getting the word out!
TC
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Naa, it's dead;
Strategic gaming was eliminated and with it the core of players not interested in personal achievements ,nonsense uber sophisticated score system and first person shooter rewarding style in a ww2 game. The maps more and more difficult to win and there's no reward for teams , massive bases towns with zilion flack to drop the frame rate, resuping m3s and the once intense best fun HQ raids are history. For my style they did all they could to make the gaming experience more miserable. Graphics are great but overall but i would trade it anytime for a 15 years back system reset to AH1 game settings. I'm still paying more for chatting once in awhile with old buddies i meet over years.
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I sunk a bit of change building a new machine, kind of picked the Video, Nvidia 1070, and built the machine around that. The numbers are slowly picking up weekends there are 200 - 210, the map as far a GV's go it a bit disappointing. Aces High III now has icons for GV's, I thought I would point this out because it was a bit of a disappointment to me. Here are some screen shots showing what a mistake this new addition is............
Here is the whole Crater Map.....notice how the GV icons stick out.....they are actually larger than the fighter planes
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s513/ts086/Icon%202_zps6hxclonu.png)
Here you can compare the fighter planes to the GV's at Tank Town......Now remember the plane icon was just a dot in AH II
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s513/ts086/Icon%203_zpsx7ayrtp2.png)
And to really point out how this hasn't enhanced the game, imagine trying to resup your town when you can't find it because of the tank icons
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s513/ts086/Icon%201_zpsq9vf1z4w.png)
And don't even ask about the "Sticky Trees" way more trees in AH III....they have really restricted the GV movements on the map in AH III. Besides the trees the hills you used to be able to climb in AH II.....not so in AH III, they now have some hills covered with boulders and your tank can't climb it. I'll let you ponder why they even came up with the idea to have Tank Icons....
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if everybody would just come back and stop putzing around we would be fine.
just come back you know you love it!
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It's fun, come back.
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I have to admit, I`ve had a number or 2 in AH3...
its fun..
The game is what you make..
come back and have some fun
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if everybody would just come back and stop putzing around we would be fine.
just come back you know you love it!
This.......
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Just get in here and start having some fun!
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I don't do much GVing, but if that's your preference you should enjoy AH3. GVs seem to be the preferred weapon for base capture. So, either attacking or defending you should find plenty of action in a GV.
(Just beware of Hellcats bearing 1000lb "welcome back" gifts.....) :D
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Naa, it's dead;
Strategic gaming was eliminated and with it the core of players not interested in personal achievements ,nonsense uber sophisticated score system and first person shooter rewarding style in a ww2 game. The maps more and more difficult to win and there's no reward for teams , massive bases towns with zilion flack to drop the frame rate, resuping m3s and the once intense best fun HQ raids are history. For my style they did all they could to make the gaming experience more miserable. Graphics are great but overall but i would trade it anytime for a 15 years back system reset to AH1 game settings. I'm still paying more for chatting once in awhile with old buddies i meet over years.
I disagree, to each his own...
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I hadn't paid attention to the CBM icon size Dundee pointed out, good catch. I wonder if that's temporary, to call attention to the addition until noticing them is ingrained.
If I may, please note that only friendly GVs are shown in the MA. I think that's good. I see little point in taking a GV to a field already defended by half a dozen GVs.
Now comes the shameless obligatory plug for Thursday Night Tank Night in the AvA.
Every regular Thursday night, for two hours, about twenty people float through with around fifteen in the arena once it gets rolling. It's still growing as a tank on tank battle between two start points without any airplanes enabled. Think Gunfight at the OK corral to get a sense of it.
We have a great group of players throwing friendly insults at each other on the common vox channel. If you like GVs come try it and have some fun.
btw, purpose built custom terrains are used for all AvA events.
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Naa, it's dead;
Strategic gaming was eliminated and with it the core of players not interested in personal achievements ,nonsense uber sophisticated score system and first person shooter rewarding style in a ww2 game. The maps more and more difficult to win and there's no reward for teams , massive bases towns with zilion flack to drop the frame rate, resuping m3s and the once intense best fun HQ raids are history. For my style they did all they could to make the gaming experience more miserable. Graphics are great but overall but i would trade it anytime for a 15 years back system reset to AH1 game settings. I'm still paying more for chatting once in awhile with old buddies i meet over years.
I completely disagree.
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The last SEC was very good and fun :aok
There seems to be more action since update, i even shot at a B29 other day :)
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I've been back for a couple of weeks now and while I don't do the GV thing, I have no problem finding a fight during the time I have on line. Its not 1v1 much anymore and you end up in multiple vs yourself fights more often, but it is still fun as long as you don't focus on score..... :old:
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if everybody would just come back and stop putzing around we would be fine.
just come back you know you love it!
Agreed.. If everyone that is not coming back because they don't think there will be good numbers came back... there would be good numbers. An endless circlejerk...
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Naa, it's dead;
Strategic gaming was eliminated and with it the core of players not interested in personal achievements ,nonsense uber sophisticated score system and first person shooter rewarding style in a ww2 game. The maps more and more difficult to win and there's no reward for teams , massive bases towns with zilion flack to drop the frame rate, resuping m3s and the once intense best fun HQ raids are history. For my style they did all they could to make the gaming experience more miserable. Graphics are great but overall but i would trade it anytime for a 15 years back system reset to AH1 game settings. I'm still paying more for chatting once in awhile with old buddies i meet over years.
I disagree but you brought up some points I do agree with....legitimately the strategy of a lot of players is to just avoid combat instead of fighting for a base...which is the core of the game, the fight for the bases.
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Trees impacting GVing is the map builder or map converter from AH2 fault. HTC as a rule does not build terrains, they are built by players, then inspected by HTC for MA use. Density of trees is not on the make or break list for inspection, that is terrain builder's responsibility to test everything he built or converted from AH2 on the terrain.
After spending the last 6 months building a new terrain for the MA, I cannot say when or even if Hitech will give it the nod for release. I learned valuable lessons about GVing and map construction with the new terrain editor clutter tiles.
1. - Waffle provided tiles with villages on them for GV spawns. They have houses and trees to protect your spawn up to a point from camping, with just enough open lanes to allow long range shooting, hiding in cover, or rapid transit if you feel lucky. All bushes can be driven through so your chances of getting stuck in trees is minimal. I tested this repeatedly over 6 months on purpose to get stuck. The new un-sticking code for trees always spit me out of tree clumps, even several nested tree clumps together I spawned into or ran into on purpose.
2. - Setting up terrain around a spawn saturated with trees is the fault of the terrain builder or his own bias against GV's in the game. The tile sets go from sand only, grass only to grass and sparse trees, to heavy trees, to high alt light trees. It is the terrain builder who impacts the GVs. This includes terrain features the GV's have to drive on to get to their target. If you put in a 500ft hill and paint it with a full saturated tree tile and the same for the low areas around that hill. And going over or around is the only viable path to the town. The terrain builder has either screwed up and not tested his own work or, he does not like GVs in the game. I learned this lesson the hard way and is why over 6 months I tested every single GV spawn on my new terrain three times along with upping a plane to fly low over each spawn's route to the town or target to account for this kind of nonsense. I also used a stopwatch and ran time to target tests with a panther and a panzer-H from the spawns to the maproom in the town, and the GV hanger on the air field to the maproom in the town.
The map builder can make the GVer's experience fun or horrible with a few mouse clicks. One thing I noticed about tree clumps over the last 6 months, don't try to hide in them, hide next to them unless you spend some time offline learning the limitations of the tree clumps.
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I got away from AH when AHIII came out cause I didn't have a machine that would handle it.
I am thinking about building a new machine, but I would be interested in knowing for AHIII has the same kind of numbers on at any given time that was on with AHII?
I am particularly interested in GV'ing.
I don't want to spend a bucket full of $$$'s on a new machine then find out that there are only a handful of people playing the game and 99% of them flying.
What is the general consensus of those who are playing the game on a regular basis these days?
thanks in advance :rock
VanceVP
From my point of view:
-The GV aspect died immediately after the transition at tank town on one particular map. The reason? Too many trees. :furious But there have been great tank battles at the new indestructible GV bases that has one hanger, no dar, and two auto guns. Just wonderful battles I've been in. :rock There have been some great GV battles at base battles and regular GV bases.
-A lot of well known names (from the Rooks) didn't make it such as Sfox, 0Rick..others names slip my mind atm.
* Personally, I didnt have the computer for this game either. AH2 I had 60FR with a lot turn down, AH3 was 5FR. I thought it would be a year or two before I got a new computer. So, after 15 years of Aces high, I cancelled my account (with 2k perkies in each category left :frown:)
* After one week I cancelled my account, I managed to get a new computer. I got a iBuypower desktop computer called the Element, I-7 EVGA GTX 1080. :banana: I have everything max out with 60FR. Overkill? Yes but for the first time in 15 years I don't have to turned things down to play. :joystick: Currently playing my 16 year now. :old:
-A positive: A lot of new people.
-Another positive: When new people ask for help, people step up and help. It is great to see. :aok
-During the day 50-70 people, evenings 150-210, nights 20-25 I don't know the experience for weekend evenings but I imagine its more than 200
-Some flying flight dynamics of planes have changed. Annoying at first but I adjusted and don't even think about it anymore. :joystick:
-Have I mentioned that there are too many trees? :rofl
-The sounds are awesome. The puffy flak, the GV guns and main turret.
-My main complaint about GV sounds: There is no unique sounds for some of the GV that when you listen you cant tell the difference of what you are listening to.
Overall, I am happy. I am glad I got a new rig for this game. I consider myself a gamer since I was a kid. Even though I had and have Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Playstations 1,2,3 and 4,--Air Warrior was always my primary game but when it died in 2001, now Aces High is my primary and still is after the transition.
Come back. You'll have fun.
:salute
27th
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I disagree but you brought up some points I do agree with....legitimately the strategy of a lot of players is to just avoid combat instead of fighting for a base...which is the core of the game, the fight for the bases.
Observing the total time players are willing to put into a sustained offensive, I'm wondering if Hitech dialing down the percentage on the town for white flag wouldn't up the willingness to fight? Stagnation seems to run a predictable course these days at stalled base captures with many players then defaulting to making decisions based on their personal risk tolerance. Often the opening 10 minutes of a base attack has players in their most willing state to take risks. By lowering the white flag percentage, if more bases are captured during the evening, success is self motivating and pumps up self esteem. Successful people are more willing to invest their efforts into risk. And right now we are at an all time low of risk aversion in this game.
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I missed the days when AH top well over 350 in one arena.
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i think we have more gvs than planes. if thats your thing, you should be happy. a gv can hide to not be found by air and the graphics are better.
Only thing I find lacking is mission participation. In the 2 months that i've been back i've only seen 1 night where large numbers participated in back to back missions. Most of the time your lucky to get 1 or 2 to join.
agree, that game is dead. maybe some on bish and 49s were cool last i knew.
Naa, it's dead;
Strategic gaming was eliminated and with it the core of players not interested in personal achievements ,nonsense uber sophisticated score system and first person shooter rewarding style in a ww2 game. The maps more and more difficult to win and there's no reward for teams , massive bases towns with zilion flack to drop the frame rate, resuping m3s and the once intense best fun HQ raids are history. For my style they did all they could to make the gaming experience more miserable. Graphics are great but overall but i would trade it anytime for a 15 years back system reset to AH1 game settings. I'm still paying more for chatting once in awhile with old buddies i meet over years.
agree. there is a really cool game i used to play online. its gone. the ma is rather boring for team players. I find reading about the weather and Sumaria much more intriguing.
The one on one arena is fun.
I assume the special events are as fun as ever.
:salute
:airplane:
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Observing the total time players are willing to put into a sustained offensive, I'm wondering if Hitech dialing down the percentage on the town for white flag wouldn't up the willingness to fight? Stagnation seems to run a predictable course these days at stalled base captures with many players then defaulting to making decisions based on their personal risk tolerance. Often the opening 10 minutes of a base attack has players in their most willing state to take risks. By lowering the white flag percentage, if more bases are captured during the evening, success is self motivating and pumps up self esteem. Successful people are more willing to invest their efforts into risk. And right now we are at an all time low of risk aversion in this game.
see ghi post. success is ever increasingly difficult. made worse by strat integration, low down times and supplies. the most exciting aspect of multi player games has been neutered. hitech would be good to take the game back to ten years ago, strategically. though i agree with the general concept of making the base take easier it is time that is the enemy of the vulnerable attacker.
a lack of mission participation and coordination make a dull boy. this problem of stagnation began long ago. it should be written in the book of dweeb, id check if i did not have to go get a drink right now.
:salute
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i think we have more gvs than planes.
No, not even close.
At very low populated late (US) night hours it can happen for a very short time, but generally it's not even close. Yet :devil
During last tour, there were averagely 2.7 players airborne in planes for every player driving a vehicle.
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Mr. President your statistics don't lie. Also, your presence on country channel is missed. :salute
I would question this statistic if we could analyze certain areas of a map and how "time" actually equates to player experience. Does the figures your using consider a 1 hour bomber flight equals 6 players in a gv for ten minutes. Or for sortie count, a vulched plane upping ten times in one minute.
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Does the figures your using consider a 1 hour bomber flight equals 6 players in a gv for ten minutes.
Yes, because both equals one hour of play time. And if you want to know what players are actually doing, you gotta look at the hours. Sortie numbers could be very misleading, vehicle sorties are generally much shorter than plane sorties.
Last tour, 100 hours 'inflight' averagely consisted of 43 hours in fighter mode, 13 in attack mode, 16 in bomber mode and 27 in vehicles. You may have already noted the absence of manned guns, there is no data on that.
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back to the topic ......... Vance.
Build it they will come. :aok
Numbers have been getting better. Lots of old call signs coming back along with many new players.
You don't have to get an expensive motherboard or cpu, just get a good video card. It is fun to run AH III with
all the eye candy turned all the way up.
Glad to see you are keeping an eye on AH.
:salute
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Activity instigates responsive activity in games.
Right now we are stagnant in terms of activity and numbers are not the problem. Reasons to become active are the problem. Numbers in our current case dictate how long active participation will take place. Any attack on a field to capture it these days has about a 10-15 minute window of activity we remember as normal from 10 years ago. Then the energy and willingness to stay active drops off. Unless the conditions for a capture are so close and the enemy at that field are in full on vulch victim mode. If not, and the enemy responds with numbers at the field or with altitude from another field, the activity is abandoned as a lost cause. Then back to waiting for someone to initiate more activity or people get bored and log for the night.
Make air fields easier to capture by reducing the town down percentage so the active 10-15 minutes matches the willingness to stay with the activity.
I no longer know anyone who thinks capturing any base in today's MA can be accomplished with large numbers against all of the ducks that have to be lined up just to get troops into the map room. And a similar large number of defenders keeping the ducks out of reach. Why attempt to do something that has a greater chance of stalemating and making you feel like the game wants you to fail while getting picked to death? I used to think base taking failure was just the knights all getting to be "been there done that" middle aged keystone cops. When POTW moved over to rooks, the rooks have the same attitude about base captures as the knights. So much of the time, like the knights, the rooks are boring and do nothing. Except for those few nights a week all the knights or all the rooks happen to show up at the same place as a country and hoard swamp the target.
The last adjustment to 20% of the town down was when 400 players a night was normal. It was proportional to the population both sides of a fight could bring to the fight. Today much of the MA is scaled for a 400 a night population that took bases quickly and kept activity going all night. At maybe 200 a night, some of the scale needs to be adjusted to speed up activity and not bore or frustrate the smaller numbers. Earlier I suggested lower the town down percentage to match the activity window in the MA so players can start feeling like they are accomplishing something more than playing keystone cop failures.
And so what if it makes it easier during off prime time for three guys to flip a map. The next day the new map will still have to lower town down percentage so the prime time guys can feel good about their time investment in the game.
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The eye candy on the terrain alone is worth the price of admission. Ack hugging is worse than ever thanks to the insane accuracy and damage rendered by the autoguns... The 88mm point and click crowd is also annoying. But the game is still fun.
Hopefully numbers continue to rise.
Come give it a whirl.
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You know what's missing the most?
Berms.
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The future of war gamming is the free to play and the pay to win. The free to play gives you the numbers to have many targets. The pay to win gives you better tools and keeps the game financed. I still pay my 15 dollars per month because its really nothing to me. I only plan on attending ETs memorial flight. The lack of players and the evolution of a single player game has caused me to lose interest. I always believed in a team based war game where one country battles another to the victory requirements. I have found a free to play and pay to win game where players on both sides fight for victory conditions but must work together to achieve it. If I want a better chance at doing good I can pay money but its still up to skill to take advantage of it. Over the years Ive seen this game progress to solo achievements and not doing things together. What we have now is a more visually pretty aces high 2 that has a hardcore population of solo players or players that play together in small groups. The 600 double late arenas where countries clashed for supremacy are long gone. If aces high 3 wants to provide a true massive war game with new blood they need to entertain a free play system with the ability to still make a income and possible a much larger income.
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So old friend, what say you?
oh hell P.S.
you can check films and screenshots and AH3 on youtube to fights and see what terrains look like.
here's a list of the maps we have now--SFMA-NDISLES-CRATERMA<--NOT LIKE YOU REMEMBER-MONTIS-THEY JUST BROUGHT SMPIZZA BACK-MINDAO-AND A MAP THAT WAS NOT IN AH2-BUZZSAW Very GV friendly but a lot of people hate it. I liked it when it 1st came out, but now I'm on the fence.
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I got away from AH when AHIII came out cause I didn't have a machine that would handle it.
I am thinking about building a new machine, but I would be interested in knowing for AHIII has the same kind of numbers on at any given time that was on with AHII?
I am particularly interested in GV'ing.
I don't want to spend a bucket full of $$$'s on a new machine then find out that there are only a handful of people playing the game and 99% of them flying.
What is the general consensus of those who are playing the game on a regular basis these days?
thanks in advance
VanceVP
If your machine would not run AHIII and a simple upgrade would not fix it, then you must have a really old machine. That or when it was new it was at the bottom of the quality scale.
I see over 200 on in the evenings central time.
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Small things have always changed MA play focus. I've had 15 years to watch that evolution including 2008 hit everyone in the pocket book across the board in online gaming. So yes FTP took advantage of many not having discretionary income to milk the few who did. Times change, new people are running things effecting income outcomes, people with discretionary income are on the rise and AH is still here with a formula no one else has.
And as I stated, it has always been the small changes Hitech makes that refocuses the game from one screeching group's play style to another louder screeching group's demands. We don't have 400 average a night in the MA, and the base capture mechanism is tuned to that number. The toys and using them has not really changed in 15 years, we still mount up and furball or base take. What has changed is the background function parameters we have to meet to achieve victories other than personal man to man outcomes.
When the downturn happened we were left with a core community of veterans who won't fight if the odds are against them and have the experience to see that quickly. They will show up to a dinner bell for a 10-15 minute window and give everything they have, then runaway and not risk themselves based on their experience. This is the reason the greatest activity generating process in the game stalls out and becomes boring. In 10-15 minutes of all out activity, if you cannot take a base or it turns into a vulch city full of free kills, everyone gets bored and runs away. When we were at an average of 400 a night, the window was 30 minutes because of all the stragglers that would keep showing up to replace those who got bored.
Many of the new AH generation come from games with much faster action turn around times. How do you keep them in this game tuned for an era 10 years ago? A tiny thing can be changed with a large impact on activity in the game. Tune the town down percentage to today's population and time expectations so prime time groups accomplish more. As the population picks up, the town down percentage can always be changed to control outcomes. And all the lone wolf types who want more players to stand and fight, will just like 2002-2007 have tiny hoards to treat like sheep herds to snack on while dumping on base sneaks. And those hoards would be helped with the old school NOE radar parameters.
Our current population is not big enough to abuse these two adjustments, and it took time years ago for that abuse to creep in as the community population grew. So this time around Hitech has the past to tell him when adjustments will need to be applied to a growing population.
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see ghi post. success is ever increasingly difficult. made worse by strat integration, low down times and supplies. the most exciting aspect of multi player games has been neutered. hitech would be good to take the game back to ten years ago, strategically. though i agree with the general concept of making the base take easier it is time that is the enemy of the vulnerable attacker.
a lack of mission participation and coordination make a dull boy. this problem of stagnation began long ago. it should be written in the book of dweeb, id check if i did not have to go get a drink right now.
:salute
I agree........why all the changes to down times...it worked just fine in AH II. Oh.....I forgot we have to preserve the "Fur Ball" so re-sup times have to be shorter. they were -30min down time for every box of cargo dropped. the bombers were still in the air when the 6 boxes had brought thee strat up. It used to be -4 min. for every box in AH II.....They had to close the Early & Mid war to even get the numbers in the main arena to begin with...........Make it visually nice.....but make the play like in AH II done !
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I agree........why all the changes to down times...it worked just fine in AH II. Oh.....I forgot we have to preserve the "Fur Ball" so re-sup times have to be shorter. they were -30min down time for every box of cargo dropped. the bombers were still in the air when the 6 boxes had brought thee strat up. It used to be -4 min. for every box in AH II.....They had to close the Early & Mid war to even get the numbers in the main arena to begin with...........Make it visually nice.....but make the play like in AH II done !
Show me a single game update and explain it logically where it was made to make the furballers experience better....only one I can think of in the last 10 years was the Matchplay (not including new planes)...
Fact is most updates to gameplay have been to making the war crowd happy and negatively effected the furball crowd...which is why that crowd has left the game in hordes...