Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: molybdenum on March 28, 2017, 04:06:01 PM
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(As an intro, I really do appreciate all the effort undertaken in giving the Aces High community a new map. Thank you for your hard work bustr. The terrain looks wonderful and the base layout looks well done and well thought out. But...)
There isn't much you could have done to make strat runs less doable, except make the cloud layers denser--which, if I remember correctly, was your original intention (something about having clouds obscure the target 80% of the time, an idea which HT apparently nixed). 4 of the 7 strat targets are ~10 sectors from the nearest enemy base and protected by flak bases and 163s--who is going to fly hours to try to reach these targets under those circumstances? HQ, city, radar, and troop factories might as well not even exist from a strategic standpoint (more on that later).
Of the remaining 3 strats--AAA, ammo, and fuel-- 2 are at what I consider a reasonable distance from enemy bases, but one of them (fuel) has virtually no strategic significance. The ammo strat at least is closer to enemy lines than the previous 4 I mentioned, but I and I assume many others will never go there unless we take a lot of territory in that direction--simply not worth the time. So for people like me who want to bomb strats to help my side take bases--which is the great majority of strat runners, it's why we take an hour out of our lives and limited game time to try to reach a target--we have only 2 targets: ammo and AAA, with ammo being awfully iffy.
So that leaves AAA strat as the obvious target. Everyone who cares about strats will know that and will have every opportunity to grab whatever alt they want to have and wait for you as you slowly traverse active overlapping dar rings (because the radar strat, being essentially unreachable, will be 100%, so 30min downtimes on radars) en route to target. Not at all a happy thing for people who fly unescorted buffs deep into enemy territory.
In addition, I ran sups to both AAA and radar strats this morning to see how quickly it could be done.
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Oops, didn't mean to send that, all well, to continue...
I ran sups to both AAA and radar strat this morning to see how quickly it could be done. I dropped sups at those strats from the moment I spawned in IN LESS THAN 3 MINUTES. That's an incredibly quick and easy trip, further negating what we strat runners try to do to help our team.
Is this map a work in progress? Will the status quo remain? With strats unreachable and resuppable, base taking will be much more difficult, and given the size of this map, it will be very hard to win.
If so, ah well, it's spring, when this map's up I'll just go on walks and enjoy the scenery.
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I haven't played the new map yet, but I like it already. :devil
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How about fighting and leave the strats as they are. :)
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So... to hit strategic targets it will be tough if they're just a single milk running set of bombers with a lot of time on their hands?
:aok I'm ok with this.
Wiley.
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Grab some friends in other buffs, a couple escorts, and you've got the blueprint for a fun and satisfying engagement.
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I haven't played the new map yet, but I like it already. :devil
I see what you did there. :noid
+1
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it didn't take long for the crying to start.
there's more to this game than strat bombing.
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it didn't take long for the crying to start.
there's more to this game than strat bombing.
To me and people like me, whatever we do in the game has to be meaningful to be enjoyable. Killing a bad guy just to kill a bad guy has no value unless it furthers a purpose that benefits the team. Similarly, taking down a strat has no meaning if the strat can be supped up before you can land to make use of the damage you've inflicted on it; or if you can't get to it in the 1st place because it's an obvious target and fighters are waiting for you at 30k before you get there.
Time is a commodity. Everyone decides in this game (and in life!) how much of this precious commodity they are willing to spend to attempt to achieve a desired goal. The way the strats are currently arranged on the new map, fewer and fewer people will bother to hit them, and that subset of the AH community to which strat runs are important will be less inclined to play. Given the declining numbers in AH3 is this a desirable outcome?
Oh, and as a minor side point, the map creator recently suggested in a BB post that towns be made to be white flagged more easily, to encourage base taking, enthusiasm, and a more dynamic game play atmosphere. Making the strats reasonably accessible would have the same effect. So why stick the strats way in the back? I don't get it.
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it didn't take long for the crying to start.
there's more to this game than strat bombing.
The man posted a polite and well-considered opinion. There's more to this game than furballing.
- oldman (a dedicated 1v1 person, who hasn't the faintest idea how to calibrate the current bomb sight)
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Well, this terrain cannot be changed now that it is in rotation, it is what it is. See if you can get whom ever is working on the next one to stand up and identify himself. Then see if he will change his work in progress to fill your needs. He may well be a fellow traveler to how you view the game and is building a stratastical masterpiece of strategical wonder because he is a kindred spirit.
It appears that a number of players started talking to the terrain builders in the terrain editor forum after I began posting screen shots of my work. I was hoping the posts would show players that building a terrain is not very complicated, just demanding of your time. And from that, possibly one of them or even our established terrain builders would be inspired to produce new MA terrains.
If I can build an MA terrain, any one of this game's community can to, including yourself molybdenum. Our terrains are almost exclusively created by players on their own time.
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Another well known strat milkrunner was complaining quite vociferously yesterday. I enjoy tears. :neener:
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I think the way the strats are setup actually give someone the chance to defend them unlike other maps so I respectfully disagree.
It was great seeing a mass of whirbs on a field and a ton of aircraft coming in from the next base when POTW upped in mass....instead of seeing Man Guns and M3s....I think the map has a lot to do with it.
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To me and people like me, whatever we do in the game has to be meaningful to be enjoyable. Killing a bad guy just to kill a bad guy has no value unless it furthers a purpose that benefits the team. Similarly, taking down a strat has no meaning if the strat can be supped up before you can land to make use of the damage you've inflicted on it; or if you can't get to it in the 1st place because it's an obvious target and fighters are waiting for you at 30k before you get there.
Time is a commodity. Everyone decides in this game (and in life!) how much of this precious commodity they are willing to spend to attempt to achieve a desired goal. The way the strats are currently arranged on the new map, fewer and fewer people will bother to hit them, and that subset of the AH community to which strat runs are important will be less inclined to play. Given the declining numbers in AH3 is this a desirable outcome?
Oh, and as a minor side point, the map creator recently suggested in a BB post that towns be made to be white flagged more easily, to encourage base taking, enthusiasm, and a more dynamic game play atmosphere. Making the strats reasonably accessible would have the same effect. So why stick the strats way in the back? I don't get it.
so bomb all the airfields all the gv bases. it's the only map like this, other maps will come up,to fill your blood thirsty strat attacks
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The man posted a polite and well-considered opinion. There's more to this game than furballing.
- oldman (a dedicated 1v1 person, who hasn't the faintest idea how to calibrate the current bomb sight)
yeah there's bombing gv'ing dogfighting fleet battles.
just because it's a long flight to bomb strats doesent mean it can't or shouldn't be done.
just saying strats are not the only thing to bomb
I know they are going to say -but it's the most inportant
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When Buzzsaw comes around, attacking Strats will be a 10 minute flight or drive that will take the defenders 2 hours to repair. It all evens out in the long run.
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I think the way the strats are setup actually give someone the chance to defend them unlike other maps so I respectfully disagree.
It was great seeing a mass of whirbs on a field and a ton of aircraft coming in from the next base when POTW upped in mass....instead of seeing Man Guns and M3s....I think the map has a lot to do with it.
off hours with the strats taking longer to hit will be a problem because the m3 re-suppliers will only need 2 boxes to get town safe again.
Again disable the town resupply when strats are 100%! :D
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off hours with the strats taking longer to hit will be a problem because the m3 re-suppliers will only need 2 boxes to get town safe again.
Again disable the town resupply when strats are 100%! :D
People are staying away from anything I can plug with M3 resupply...think they figured out I was adding that to any thread I possibly could...even got it in an FSO thread :D
That being said...Town resupply is just silly, make them have to go all the way to the base to resupply the town too at least.
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We could have the Studebaker US6 and/or Opel Blitz added for field cargo runs and remove that option from the M3 and 251. Secondly, I think a change in how resupplying with field cargo may need a look at. As is, you can get into a rough range and drop, resupplying everything within range (1/2 mile? I've forgotten. :o). What if it was changed to where you need to be within a circle of the town/base in order for the supplies to "tick"? Similar to how you need to be on concrete to get a successful landing with a plane. Or even have it to where you need to get within 50 yards of the map room/tower in order for supplies to "tick"? Maybe adding a "depot" to bases and towns, where you would need to take the supplies there in order for the "tick", with a circle the same size as a re-arm pad?
As for how the strat's are setup, so long as there is a TON of puffy as a result (haven't made a run to deep strats just yet), I approve. :)
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I made the HQ\city\strat areas as a giant miles wide complex for each country. If you really want to be WW2 kinds of strategic, the place is vulnerable to the list below. ENY and nothing being available like radar\ords\troops due to constant single finger salutes on the strats for the last few years really PO'd me and all the people who were having fun with me every night. Yes Hitech made the HQ time and damage adjustments, I just got really tired of my evening being pooped on. In WW2 high value targets were protected by many things including how they were created and located. Finally, you are free just as I did, to make your own terrains.
1. - Two to three squads.
2. - Ask your selves why did I leave such giant radar blind areas in the back end of each country? And the nearest island bases so far away?
3. - Move a CV or two CV groups within 3-4 sectors of the strat complex. No one looks around in the water up there for enemy fleets.
4. - One squad up a massive bomber mission and climb to whatever alt is good for their bombing accuracy.
5. - You might want some NOE medium bombers or mossi16 groups.
6. - At a pre determined time, the task group squads and the NOE medium bombers start taking out the fighter hangers and GV hanger on the airfield to the left of the HQ. Each country's 163 field is that one. Also target the AA fields and take out the auto 88 guns. Also get the fighter hangers and GV hanger at the second strat complex airfield. Who knows, send in a lead high alt bomber mission to help take out the fighter hangers and GV hangers.
7. - Now the main bomber force can flatten the strats and make that country unhappy for how ever long it takes for the rebuild. The GV hangers will be down so only c47s will be available to resupply and you can have a nice turkey shoot if they try.
Other wise, strategically on this terrain, bombers are now very important for hitting feilds because of how close so many are positioned making capturing them faster. And all those task groups each country has wandering around.
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To me and people like me, whatever we do in the game has to be meaningful to be enjoyable. Killing a bad guy just to kill a bad guy has no value unless it furthers a purpose that benefits the team. Similarly, taking down a strat has no meaning if the strat can be supped up before you can land to make use of the damage you've inflicted on it; or if you can't get to it in the 1st place because it's an obvious target and fighters are waiting for you at 30k before you get there.
Time is a commodity. Everyone decides in this game (and in life!) how much of this precious commodity they are willing to spend to attempt to achieve a desired goal. The way the strats are currently arranged on the new map, fewer and fewer people will bother to hit them, and that subset of the AH community to which strat runs are important will be less inclined to play. Given the declining numbers in AH3 is this a desirable outcome?
Oh, and as a minor side point, the map creator recently suggested in a BB post that towns be made to be white flagged more easily, to encourage base taking, enthusiasm, and a more dynamic game play atmosphere. Making the strats reasonably accessible would have the same effect. So why stick the strats way in the back? I don't get it.
You and people like you need to get together and fly to them.
Offline you can choose any terrain to fly and there will be no one to shoot you down.
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I did not like it at first, but the more I play it, the more I like it.
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You and people like you need to get together and fly to them.
Offline you can choose any terrain to fly and there will be no one to shoot you down.
wait a minute... i think we have another winner of the I so smaaaat contest!
I think a strategic strat run and a bombing milkrun are two different things. Unless we are talking new players here I highly doubt your going to find a single player who wouldnt mind an intercept or 2 there and back.
Where do you people get the idea strategic players dont want action? All we want is the ability to make an impact on a larger scale than a leaderboard.
As for this map its got a lot of strategy elements to it that support quick action on the battlefield. Strats is not one of them. This map takes a large time investment with very little reward if you lone wolf it unless you can commit 2 1/2 hours in b29s and get them up above 30k. I like that!
Its a video game map. Pure and simple. Well put together and enjoyable.
9/10 for action and options to fight
6/10 for strategy
8/10 for terrain and visuals
Inspires me to put some work into a map myself.
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I think a strategic strat run and a bombing milkrun are two different things.
They look incredibly similar from an interceptor's perspective.
Wiley.
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They look incredibly similar from an interceptor's perspective.
Wiley.
how so?
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how so?
It's not that hard to answer your own question here.
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how so?
They are both a set of buffs looking to be shot down :D
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They are both a set of buffs looking to be shot down :D
This. 25k+ bombers... Master strategist or milk runner? At the end of the day does it really matter?
Wiley.
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This. 25k+ bombers... Master strategist or milk runner? At the end of the day does it really matter?
Wiley.
:bhead
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Master Single Finger Salute Griefer.
Odds are very good no one will be at 25k or higher in an interceptor and the vast majority of average players don't have the 163 perks or don't want to use them against a single bomber group. Odds are all in the favor of the milk runner to single finger salute grief a whole country and whizz on their fun with the only risk being "time".
I removed that from my terrain as much as I could by using the terrain building rules to make the strats that matter a real strategic effort target complex.
When my terrain was in rotation, I kept an eye on it each day to see how it was being utilized. I saw more bombers up attacking things from below 15k than I've seen since 2009. Even the bombers were fighting and not griefing for a change. How did the bish win the terrain, they upped bombers, flew below 7k to the target, and strategically smashed the town and took the target away from the owner without any sneaking around. There was no need to disable the strats "to help their war effort", the bish just used the bombers as bombers to flatten what they wanted and took it old school.
Too many of our terrains have had the built in weakness of allowing one guy to purposely whizz on 100 guys and screw their short period of play time that they pay a monthly charge for. Hitech will never tell us if players were canceling their accounts back when the 49ers and others were griefing the HQ's almost nightly several times a night. So I created my terrain accordingly and the majority had fun fighting instead of resupplying or logging off because of some MSFSG.
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Damn right Bustr!
:salute
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Master Single Finger Salute Griefer.
Odds are very good no one will be at 25k or higher in an interceptor and the vast majority of average players don't have the 163 perks or don't want to use them against a single bomber group. Odds are all in the favor of the milk runner to single finger salute grief a whole country and whizz on their fun with the only risk being "time".
I removed that from my terrain as much as I could by using the terrain building rules to make the strats that matter a real strategic effort target complex.
When my terrain was in rotation, I kept an eye on it each day to see how it was being utilized. I saw more bombers up attacking things from below 15k than I've seen since 2009. Even the bombers were fighting and not griefing for a change. How did the bish win the terrain, they upped bombers, flew below 7k to the target, and strategically smashed the town and took the target away from the owner without any sneaking around. There was no need to disable the strats "to help their war effort", the bish just used the bombers as bombers to flatten what they wanted and took it old school.
Too many of our terrains have had the built in weakness of allowing one guy to purposely whizz on 100 guys and screw their short period of play time that they pay a monthly charge for. Hitech will never tell us if players were canceling their accounts back when the 49ers and others were griefing the HQ's almost nightly several times a night. So I created my terrain accordingly and the majority had fun fighting instead of resupplying or logging off because of some MSFSG.
Certainly did not take much to get to the bottom of what inspired you bustr. I love your work and I am absolutely thrilled that nice guys like yourself give a player like me so much dang credit. Especially since some of us have managed to disguise what we are really doing over the years.... Winning da warZ!
As for the impact 49whinners had on hq that was a period during a rough time for the game and community. Kinda like a stale pond during a long drought. What was being done to hq was impressive. That was an element of the game some players think shouldnt have been available. They would shut dowb an hq for a day and never make ot flash unless they wanted. I dont think your map is bullet proof to that unless you shade.
Precision, execution, great strategy can be found on any map. Something quite a few players in this game over look. Your map will stand the test of time and fall to the victor over and over by 1 simple strategy.
Bombers flying under 15k? Dropping at 7k? That is the altitude of dreams for fighters and bomber pros like 99900. Cloud cover obscures targets but also hides buffs to and from the target. Clouds are an edge to all who embrace them.
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This. 25k+ bombers... Master strategist or milk runner? At the end of the day does it really matter?
Wiley.
personally if I am at 25k in your territory a player like you was throwing a dar long before i was an imminent threat. So im likely to climb if more than one dar is in the sector. If your alone your getting shot down and you might take a bird with you :neener: Then im still crushing the strat.
If someone is milk running your beat and neve given the chance to gain an advantage. That isn't a bad thing for the other guy... Who your trying to shoot down. :rofl
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well molybdenum I'm sorry you feel you have to fly 5,000 miles to bomb my strats- but not all terrains are like BowlMA (great map by the way) and there are still more maps to come out maybe some new ones or redesigned old ones we just have to wait and see. but I'm not oject to flying up to 25-30k to shoot bomber or hehe try to shoot bombers down. but if I catch up to u up there and you bail(which I usually don't mind if someone does- i'll be here on the boards talking to you about it.
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I somewhat agree with the OP.
While the map generally is a good one, there are some issues with the strats (but then, there are lot of issues since the central strat was broken up).
I did never mind to fly a long way to hit a difficult and well defended target which could make a difference. And I know there were/are others like me. But I'm convinced the 'ridge' strats will almost never be hit at all, despite their importance, because of the combination of the Dreadful Four:
- Distance
- Me 163
- Fierce AA fire (the new AA fields are deadly)
- Ease of resupply because of the vehicle spawn.
About nobody is flying 1.5 hours to the very limit of his range, just to get lazily buzzed by a Me 163 when at the same time all damage he does (if any) is potentially being removed in short time.
It's a pity, because the large City would make a much better target for a large raid then what we had in the past three years.
IMHO at least that all too close GV spawns to all factories should be removed.
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This. 25k+ bombers... Master strategist or milk runner? At the end of the day does it really matter?
Wiley.
Yes, it did.
If I knew that it was just a town milker I most probably would not bother launch against him. If I knew or suspected he was going for a factory, I would have checked if I could possibly stop him before he increases the downtimes of my sides.
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I kinda like the map. I log on from work sometimes, and when I do I can't pay a lot of attention to the game for any length of time. So, I sometimes up a buff, set course for a strat, go to desktop for a while as I do my job, check in a few minutes later to see if everything's ok (or to see who shot me down), do some more work, check in again.....see a pattern here? Maps mean little to me. I play what's there. But I do appreciate all the time and effort of those that create maps :salute
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personally if I am at 25k in your territory a player like you was throwing a dar long before i was an imminent threat. So im likely to climb if more than one dar is in the sector. If your alone your getting shot down and you might take a bird with you :neener: Then im still crushing the strat.
There are 2 guys that can make that claim with something resembling credibility. I don't think you're either of them. :neener:
Yes, it did.
If I knew that it was just a town milker I most probably would not bother launch against him. If I knew or suspected he was going for a factory, I would have checked if I could possibly stop him before he increases the downtimes of my sides.
If you're defining a milk runner as a town center guy, I agree with you. I also consider people milk runners if they're just upping to ridiculous altitude and headed for the nearest/safest strat to hit it all afternoon for points. Doesn't look much different from a master strategist depending which strat they've chosen to hit. The only difference I see is the master strategest occasionally bails less often when you get into dot range.
Agreed on the resup vehicle spawns though. Although I do wonder by Bustr's... mental proclivities if he's done the math to where it would take the same amount of man hours to drive the supplies there as it did to hit it.
Wiley.
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This isn't limited to your map bustr, but why don't the stats list a field altitude?
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Nail on the head. Most strat runners do not want to be intercepted before the target.
If they did they would fly straight there instead of round about. They would not ask for fighters to take out certain radar.
Maybe you are not so smaaaat after all.
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Master Single Finger Salute Griefer.
Odds are very good no one will be at 25k or higher in an interceptor and the vast majority of average players don't have the 163 perks or don't want to use them against a single bomber group. Odds are all in the favor of the milk runner to single finger salute grief a whole country and whizz on their fun with the only risk being "time".
Incorrect. Each side has its share of players who can be counted on to watch the map and up for strat runners, or even be patrolling at high alt waiting for them--zoney, haggarty, and wiley for the nits, skishill and SYSTEM for the rooks, and r711 and flint for the bish are just the names that first come to mind. Even in the early morning hours, when maybe 30 players total are on, I'll have a fight on my hands as often as not when I strat run. Though I agree with you that the vast majority of players won't up a 163 to defend a strat, they are devastating in the hands of a skilled pilot and if that guy's on the hour I'd spend to get to target would be wasted. Why waste it?
Two things.
1) Initially I assumed that it was a miscalculation on your part in how you made the map to disfavor strat runners. I see I was mistaken: it was deliberate. Your map, your call (as long as HT approves of it) and again thanks for all the time, thought, and effort you put into making something new for us. But why "whizz on" a substantial subset of the AH3 population who want to do strat runs? Especially if you want there to be more opportunities for base takes and making the strats relatively inaccessible makes downtimes on the objects that facilitate base takes shorter?
That question was mostly rhetorical. More importantly...
2) How on earth is a strat runner "single finger griefing a whole country/whizzing on their fun"?? The 49ers took true joy in annoying the AH community by cleverly killing HQ/keeping it down for hours, and I get it that HQ had to be made a token strat as a result. But downtimes on the other strats encourage creative gameplay and facilitate base takes (or vulches, if a base is deacked and you're into that sort of thing, which a lot of the fighter pilots in the AH community seem to think is wonderful).
Anyway, I digress a little. Back the the question: how does a successful strat run whizz on the collective fun? If someone can't bomb GVers because ords are down, or up because the base is deacked and vulchers lurk, the GV or vulcher's fun is increased in equal measure to the bomber's/defender's fun being decreased.
Okay, I lied, one more question.
3) Why act like "time" (your quotes on the word) isn't a key aspect of gameplay? We all have a limited amount to devote to playing: it's essential that we players get the most bang for our temporal buck or we'll be tempted to find other uses for it.
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Incorrect. Each side has its share of players who can be counted on to watch the map and up for strat runners, or even be patrolling at high alt waiting for them--zoney, haggarty, and wiley for the nits, skishill and SYSTEM for the rooks, and r711 and flint for the bish are just the names that first come to mind. Even in the early morning hours, when maybe 30 players total are on, I'll have a fight on my hands as often as not when I strat run. Though I agree with you that the vast majority of players won't up a 163 to defend a strat, they are devastating in the hands of a skilled pilot and if that guy's on the hour I'd spend to get to target would be wasted. Why waste it?
Two things.
1) Initially I assumed that it was a miscalculation on your part in how you made the map to disfavor strat runners. I see I was mistaken: it was deliberate. Your map, your call (as long as HT approves of it) and again thanks for all the time, thought, and effort you put into making something new for us. But why "whizz on" a substantial subset of the AH3 population who want to do strat runs? Especially if you want there to be more opportunities for base takes and making the strats relatively inaccessible makes downtimes on the objects that facilitate base takes shorter?
That question was mostly rhetorical. More importantly...
2) How on earth is a strat runner "single finger griefing a whole country/whizzing on their fun"?? The 49ers took true joy in annoying the AH community by cleverly killing HQ/keeping it down for hours, and I get it that HQ had to be made a token strat as a result. But downtimes on the other strats encourage creative gameplay and facilitate base takes (or vulches, if a base is deacked and you're into that sort of thing, which a lot of the fighter pilots in the AH community seem to think is wonderful).
Anyway, I digress a little. Back the the question: how does a successful strat run whizz on the collective fun? If someone can't bomb GVers because ords are down, or up because the base is deacked and vulchers lurk, the GV or vulcher's fun is increased in equal measure to the bomber's/defender's fun being decreased.
Okay, I lied, one more question.
3) Why act like "time" (your quotes on the word) isn't a key aspect of gameplay? We all have a limited amount to devote to playing: it's essential that we players get the most bang for our temporal buck or we'll be tempted to find other uses for it.
It isnt fair when one player can single handed disrupt an entire country...
It isnt fair when the enemy hordes...
It isnt fair when no one defends or resupplies and I just want to play and have a good time :bhead
I must warped out of my mind. I mean early on found this game to be work. HARD WORK just to achieve personal victory on a larger scale than sudden encounters that live and die off of mistakes made and opportunities exploited.
A
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There are still strats within the front islands....I don't see how it's any different other then distance.
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2) How on earth is a strat runner "single finger griefing a whole country/whizzing on their fun"??
It seems to me that the whole point of destroying strats is to impair the enemy's ability to attack and defend -- i.e., their "fun".
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It seems to me that the whole point of destroying strats is to impair the enemy's ability to attack and defend -- i.e., their "fun".
I think it is there to promote combat. Yes it is a strategic target, but it should be for a"force" to attack, causing another force to defend, hence combat.
Unfortunately, like many other things (dive bombing lancs, spawn camping and such) in this game it has been bastidized into something people do that takes away others fun in the name of theirs, as in "its my 15 bucks, screw the rest of you"
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It's too bad we can't get the time from players to PARTICIPATE in strat attacks... They were alot of fun for both sides. It's one of the game aspects that "hooked" me... $15/month to participate in ET37's missions was a bargain..
The rear strats now would be evil to penetrate with bombers considering the flak resistance... Give each country an air start staged mission every two hours, then MAYBE we'd see some deep territory missions. (Or allow only top 10 ranked players from each country the ability to start one :devil)
As it stands Bustr, There's way more action on your map to satiate me than trying to roll water uphill by gathering players for a "long strat run" flight.
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I think it is there to promote combat. Yes it is a strategic target, but it should be for a"force" to attack, causing another force to defend, hence combat.
Unfortunately, like many other things (dive bombing lancs, spawn camping and such) in this game it has been bastidized into something people do that takes away others fun in the name of theirs, as in "its my 15 bucks, screw the rest of you"
No offense, but that is a bit myopic. I can use myself as an example here.
I suck at fighters and tanks. So I fly bombers. It is a challenge to get to the target, as you usually never have any fighter support, then to actually destroy the target is the same as you shooting down a plane. I find most bomber pilots to be of the same mindset.
The Melee arena is exactly that. Anything goes. Whatever is fun for you, you do it. If you find yourself trying to guide everyone into a specific style of game play, or find your fun being hurt by what others deem is fun, then the Melee arena is probably not the right arena for you (collectively speaking).
If you are not having fun in the Melee arena, then ask yourself what is fun for you, and then see if some others want to join in on that fun and leave the arena and go do it. It is your $15 bucks and you should be having fun.
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I dont think so Skuzzy. This game has so much to offer in the way of massive combat options that seem to have been wittled down to the least common denominator. Cant fight, HO. Cant ambush a tank, spawn camp. cant hit a hanger/tank/ammo bunker dive bomb with your lanc. Cant fight the enemies advance, drop a strat.
most everything in this game should be considered team oriented, wingmen, bomber streams/groups, tank columns, squad ops and so on. A single player shouldn't be able to effect the play of a group of players.
I fly bombers when there are no fights. i dont think I have been to a strat more than 2 or three times in all the years I have played. I bomb towns, hangers, ords along the front our team is working. Im playing a combat game and so fly into combat trying to hit my targets, fend off attacks and make it home.
I do the same in gvs. While I suck at it, I still work at it. Both for my enjoyment and others as I provide a target if not some times a challenge to other players. who wouldn't want more ayers to play against?
I have been playing this game since tour 21 happily sending my $15 every month. I have seen the game go from mostly a2a combat to its hey day of epic battles to the watered down version we play now. Am I having fun still? Yup and next months check is on the way!
Just because you are not "good" at something isnt a good reason to avoid doing it. Practice makes everone better and avoiding it helps no one.
I would like to see everyone join in on the fun instead of "lone wolfing" it to the strats. you want to helpout the war effort and you feel that hitting the strats is the way to go? No problem, load up a mission get a few others involved, make it fun for more people. Thats all Im saying.
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I think it is there to promote combat. Yes it is a strategic target, but it should be for a"force" to attack, causing another force to defend, hence combat.
Unfortunately, like many other things (dive bombing lancs, spawn camping and such) in this game it has been bastidized into something people do that takes away others fun in the name of theirs, as in "its my 15 bucks, screw the rest of you"
LoL what a joke. So here is a player like many in this community who attributes getting their butts kicked in MA to players using their $15 just to grief the enemy :rofl
I have a really good example of this. Huge action between two bases. My enemy has been using it's momentum to gain ground on my base over time. 30-50 players between both sides in the air and on the ground. I decide to up 60 miles away climb above 20k to shut the base down. Let's say I am able to shut said enemy base down killing the action. To players like Fugi I am grieffing the action! Forget that my object is to create a window for a counter-attack against the enemy base which almost always works albeit for a small window. Now you have a situation where it appears like a horde creating a whole new argument.
There are so many ways to perceive someone's intentions. Dive bombing lancs? Did they destroy the target? If so why are you complaining? you or a fellow countryman should have stopped them. Dive bombing in any bombers requires skill to he accurate. If I find myself in a situation where I cant get to target flying straight and level without getting ate up I am going to do whatever it takes to achieve that victory whether it's snap rolling a Ho'ing interceptor or dive bombing the target. That is my time I invested and I wont he stopped if I can help it. It's not realistic you say? Let me see you pull black out g's for hours on hours in dogfights in real life without the side effects. Its a game and if I have to game the game to stay alive and achieve victory then so be it. Yall do the same when roles are reversed.
And for the record your damn straight everytime I up a plane I am looking to end someone's fun. It's a war game. Its cartoon kill or be killed. If I dont someone will come along and do that to me. Climb for 30 minutes just to get plucked out of the sky by a squad fighter sweep. I can imagine all thefunbeing had at my expense. Flip that, I take 3 hours and smack city/then HQ. Now said fighter sweep is blind and complains because of no radar but I make it to target and home regardless of whether i am intercepted or not. To the fighter sweepers im just a ruining their fun.
It is an endless circle game. We are all stuck with each other. I had to adapt to the crap players like yourself complain about years ago because it does suck when the enemyhas invested the time to set them up for success on a MA map.
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This map challenges status quo. It's something new. Its not a strategic map its an action map and well put together. Bustr put in the work HT approved it. We have it now and im grateful for that. Im just here to stand up for strategic play. Im always going to counter statements that label that as anything but what it is.
Argument can be made dive bombing lancs and spawn camping gvs isnt strategic its gaming the game. If that style of play opens up an opportunity for me to advance the cause of winning the war I capitalize on it regardless of the intentions. I dont have the paitence to spawn camp myself and only dive bomb if i have too. Hats off to those who do and are good at it.
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<snip>
You do realize you were dictating to others how they should play the game?
Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. None of it is inherently wrong. It is an open sand box and the Melee arena is the "anything goes" arena.
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I would like to see everyone join in on the fun instead of "lone wolfing" it to the strats. you want to helpout the war effort and you feel that hitting the strats is the way to go? No problem, load up a mission get a few others involved, make it fun for more people. Thats all Im saying.
Here's a snippet from a post I made a while back when this suggestion was made before.
"One of the "solutions" offered to those buff pilots unhappy with 30min resups was (summarized) "Well, don't just bring one set of buffs! Bring a mission in!" That's ignorant, and paradoxically even less effective than the lone wolf strat runs in achieving persistent downtimes: someone--often many someones--always resups after a major strat run, and (except for the city strat, which is hit much less frequently nowadays) a c47 or m3's sup drop generally covers all the damaged areas. So what does it matter if you get the strat to 30% or 90%? The same guy or guys can bring it to 100% in the same amount of time if they want to. And the lower the strat %, the greater incentive to resup from your counterparts on the other side who also play the game to win."
Granted that there is a sort of majesty in a 10 set buff mission to strats, and much fun undoubtedly can be had by all involved, but it's simply not my thing. I want what I do to help my team win. A massive mission to strats is, in my mind and most unfortunately, "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
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LoL what a joke. So here is a player like many in this community who attributes getting their butts kicked in MA to players using their $15 just to grief the enemy :rofl
I have a really good example of this. Huge action between two bases. My enemy has been using it's momentum to gain ground on my base over time. 30-50 players between both sides in the air and on the ground. I decide to up 60 miles away climb above 20k to shut the base down. Let's say I am able to shut said enemy base down killing the action. To players like Fugi I am grieffing the action! Forget that my object is to create a window for a counter-attack against the enemy base which almost always works albeit for a small window. Now you have a situation where it appears like a horde creating a whole new argument. <snip>
LOL! I give as good as I get! What is you in game name, have I run into you in game?
As for your scenario, I haven't a problem with you dropping the hangers to buy time to mount a defense. The problem arises when someone does it and laughs on 200 and then goes to play some place else. Not only has he messed with my fun, he has screwed up everyones fun that was there fighting for that base.
You do realize you were dictating to others how they should play the game?
Everyone has their own idea of what is fun. None of it is inherently wrong. It is an open sand box and the Melee arena is the "anything goes" arena.
Yes, to a point but aren't those single players dropping strats also dictating how a whole team has to play?
I think the game should be played in a certain way, yes, but only in the broadest general terms. To quote a well known web page....
"Aces High takes the art and science of vintage WW1 and WW2 air combat and sets it in a high intensity online multiplayer environment. Hundreds of players simultaneously battle it out against each other in massive aerial dogfights and bomber raids. "
So, if that is the environment that the game was designed around why shouldn't we try and talk these players who avoid combat, how ever they may into playing along with/like the rest of us?
I dont have a problem with players hitting strats so much, I dont think a single players should be able to do enough damage to cripple another team. On the other hand should a group attack it now we have a battle.
Todays game play is a shadow of what was in its heyday. A mission today, even ET37's (RIP) was really nothing more than a horde attacking one field. Granted ET always put a spin on it and made it fun..... for those in the mission, but what of those on the other side? They either tried to get a ton of alt and pick bombers, or just moved to the other front. Now had ET split his "force" as he saw the numbers he had joining he could have hit a couple bases getting some guys to stick around and defend at once place or another.
The point I'm trying to make is many players are avoiding the "spirit of the game" because they either find it too tough to join in, or are simply here to cause trouble. The game shouldn't be set up to "help" those players do that, it should be set up so they join in, or in the case of the bad apples removed.
Here's a snippet from a post I made a while back when this suggestion was made before.
"One of the "solutions" offered to those buff pilots unhappy with 30min resups was (summarized) "Well, don't just bring one set of buffs! Bring a mission in!" That's ignorant, and paradoxically even less effective than the lone wolf strat runs in achieving persistent downtimes: someone--often many someones--always resups after a major strat run, and (except for the city strat, which is hit much less frequently nowadays) a c47 or m3's sup drop generally covers all the damaged areas. So what does it matter if you get the strat to 30% or 90%? The same guy or guys can bring it to 100% in the same amount of time if they want to. And the lower the strat %, the greater incentive to resup from your counterparts on the other side who also play the game to win."
Granted that there is a sort of majesty in a 10 set buff mission to strats, and much fun undoubtedly can be had by all involved, but it's simply not my thing. I want what I do to help my team win. A massive mission to strats is, in my mind and most unfortunately, "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
Again, one person shouldn't be able to dictate play for a whole team. Your one set of buffs shouldn't be able to take out more than a quarter of a strat, on the other hand the time invested by you to do that shouldn't be repairable any quicker either. But if you lone wolf it to a strat and I get 5 guys to hook up with me to resupply it, sure we should bring it up faster. I used a team, you didn't. The same should be true the other way, you and 3 other guys flatten a strat it should take me all afternoon to bring it back up by myself.
I want to see action in the game. with one player hitting the strat he isn't creating action and so should be discouraged by having the damage/aid to his team minimized. Encourage team work and so action by rewarding them with better damage/aid to their team by grouping up.
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Fugi, the strats reset every 3 hours without resupply. They are defendable and can be resupplied fairly quickly. I get where your going but that isn't the MA. Never has been never will be. HiTech has done more to tweek the game in favor of your argument than mine. No more central strats. A nice buff to resup times. Huge buff to city strat and HQ along with impressive upgrades to Ack.
Normal players dont wipe out strats anymore quit living in the past. Its brutal striking city on some maps and I am estatic when i drop it more than 20%. Any other strats seems like they arent worth dropping below 60% due to OP resup. A normal sitting im logging 6 hours minimum. Strats are critical to advance or defend the map. So 1-4 strat runs a day is nothing. Your idea group attacks encourages multi-account same side tactics. Know a few players who run multi-accounts on the same side for this very reason. That is the only way a single player can accomplish what you talking about anymore. Then it's not there $15 its their $30,$45,$75 :rofl
This game has gone more toward your style of play whoch is a huge kick in the balls. Its a spit in the face when your here complaining about things that have been addressed in game but since your list isnt fully checked off here you are!
With each change comes the opportunity to adapt and exploit. Fortunately for everyone these changes are imo helping improve the game for the long term. If only we could get a few hundred more sticks I would be happy.
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again, what is your in game name? I like to know who Im talking to.
As for "my type of game" I do it all. Milk runs, base porking, base capture, furball, base defense, on and on and on. Thats what is fun, there is so much available. The problem is the new guys are gamers. They are goal orientated. They dont cant about how they get "there".
It seems like your idea to slow/stop an advance is to bomb a strat. Mine is to get a few guys together and pork some bases, or cap the area the enemy is coming in from. Creating combat/action/fun.
HTC isnt changing the game to make it better for one type of play or another. They make changes to try and keep it balanced. Players are the one who make changes to upset the balance, mainly because they don't want/cant raise their game play to meet the challenge. So they look for the short cuts, and loop holes to get arond it. Hence the watered down version we play today.
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Never in my life as a aces high player has a strat being bombed 2 sectors from me or 20 has ever affected me. To be completely honest I didn't even know what the strats did and I still don't know what they look like(in person). I see bombers on them all the time. Even so I still can roll a plane and kill cartoon pilots so what's the big deal about strats lol.
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... Even so I still can roll a plane and kill cartoon pilots so what's the big deal about strats lol.
You must not have been involved in centralized strat/city/HQ "raids" which included a sizable portion of "cartoon" pilots to attack.... The large centralized missions to a given cities strats would always draw a good crowd of defenders, which meant it was always tense/fun for the attacking formation of bombers/escorts.
Times change, not bad, not good, but this cartoon pilot gets nostalgic for the 40-60+ players in a single sector at altitude tmixing it up. Doesn't hurt that ET37's recent passing makes for stand-out memories of large bomber formations lumbering into enemy territory. . . with bomber bailing to maximize their playtime, it's understandable why we don't defend against lone bombers....But that formation of 10? you better believe there's going to be some excitement... Now to find 9 more people to fly...
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Never in my life as a aces high player has a strat being bombed 2 sectors from me or 20 has ever affected me.
I can generally ignore the strat game, too. However, I think field radar and ack makes for better fights so having them down for hours on end (Buzzsaw!) does affect my game.
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Let me see how heightmap grayscale creation works out. If I can do it, I can rapidly prototype a new 20x20 sector arena in an art program, convert to 16bit raw, and import it into the TE. That should cut out several months of manual labor in the TE.
This is my first attempt at a random island shape. I'm using a contour gradient tool to change a black 2D shape into a 2D contour grayscale gradient topographic representation of the island shape. I have a program that supposedly will import this file and export it as a 16bit grayscale raw file. And then the TE supposedly will import that raw file and create all the land masses. I think if I make a small test terrain where I lay down some number of 3mile diameter land masses at elevations from 50 to 20,000ft. I can open that terrain's height.raw file and use the hex code for the different grayscale colors as my elevation pallet. After all I'm only making fantasy island's.
(https://s20.postimg.org/hyv8a9s0d/contour2.jpg)
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Let me see how heightmap grayscale creation works out. If I can do it, I can rapidly prototype a new 20x20 sector arena in an art program, convert to 16bit raw, and import it into the TE. That should cut out several months of manual labor in the TE.
This is my first attempt at a random island shape. I'm using a contour gradient tool to change a black 2D shape into a 2D contour grayscale gradient topographic representation of the island shape. I have a program that supposedly will import this file and export it as a 16bit grayscale raw file. And then the TE supposedly will import that raw file and create all the land masses. I think if I make a small test terrain where I lay down some number of 3mile diameter land masses at elevations from 50 to 20,000ft. I can open that terrain's height.raw file and use the hex code for the different grayscale colors as my elevation pallet. After all I'm only making fantasy island's.
(https://s20.postimg.org/hyv8a9s0d/contour2.jpg)
Heads up, if you are working in 8 bit gray scale, a conversion will not work very well.
One shade up or down will be 256 foot change in elevation.
HiTech
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Hitech,
Thank you for verifying what ghostdancer posted for me. He said the files are 16bit.
I hope you know I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing here, I'm just guessing, then pushing buttons in art programs to see if anything blows up. And reading other game forums discussions about heightmap files for their terrains. Other game's players seem to talk more about them than we do here for creating the raw land masses in their terrains. Still, our arenas are ginormous but, if this works, I can see how I could have eliminated many hours of mind numbing work by creating the raw land masses in an art program as a 2D map first.
Well back to pushing buttons and seeing what breaks....... :O
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Well I've been pushing buttons and breaking everything this evening.
I discovered how to make the TE produce all of the terrain as a negative image under the surface of the water if you leave the grid on to show you the negative elevations. Still, I finally figured out how to create a 16bit grayscale PNG file and place an RGB contour gradient filled object captured from a JPG file into the PNG file and get a contoured land mass to popup in the TE. It may be possible for me to create the heightmap starting with an RGB jpeg 4096x4096 so I can create the contour elevations in black and white. Then import that to Krita and convert it to a 16bit grayscale PNG. I will have to experiment with the color values so I can get close to the maximum land mass terrain alts I want to define land masses by. Still getting all of the gross land mass popped up in one import will speed up a 20x20 terrain by a large factor.
Now I gotta work on scale, my playing around was with 25,000ft as the maximum elevation which you can see how massive things can get when they are imported to the TE and "POPUP". One gigantic island, and some giant cylinders, and a ginormous wall in the ocean of the TE. :O
Oh, and yes, the TE rotates the image so I have to test that to get the rotation I have to apply before exporting to a RAW format.
Some basic test objects I finally produced after breaking everything.
(https://s20.postimg.org/yy98mn9jh/contour3.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/45bxic5ql/contour4.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/zeug92xal/contour5.jpg)
As you can see by the above screen captures I was able to incorporate this contour gradient filled 2D jpeg picture from below into the file I converted to a heightmap raw file. When I pasted in the island to the original PNG file, I placed it to the north of the wall, not 90 degrees rotated to the west.
(https://s20.postimg.org/hyv8a9s0d/contour2.jpg)
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Also take a look at l3dt for creating the base height maps. It works well with our height map exports.
http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/
HiTech
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What horizontal scale does HTC use with a 4096x4096 in L3DT?
Dang, I really had figured out how to generate a 2D black and white contoured filled 4096x4096 jpeg map file and importing it into a 16bit grayscale PNG file to convert to raw. Working in gradient shades of near black charcoal just to create say a 1000ft high 5 mile long island with topo features was the real hurdle. I was working each land mass's contouring on a separate layer with a tool that performs a contour gradient fill like the clip I posted. Just so I could leave out the black(#000000) ocean field and only see the charcoal colored gradient fill. You can go blind staring at gradient shades of charcoal. I just figured I would visit all of the islands anyway, so the pixelization around each shore I would clean up while I smoothed the island topo contours.
I found photo shop's raw format to be really noisy and it produced 25k spike tubes instead of the cylinders with the center sunk 25k into the water when I produced my test heightmap out of it. Along with turning the water brown by covering it with 1ft of land mass and generating a negative wall down into the water. A truly weird looking test terrain. It wasn't untill I got the cylinders and the wall to show up that I moved on to adding in the island. I had to export the PNG file from Krita as a .r16, change the extension to .raw, then import it into ImageJ and save as a raw file format. That unsigned raw file was then OK with the terrain editor. I kept pushing buttons and breaking things until the terrain editor was happy.
Hitech, thank you for your responses and pointing me at l3dt.
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no no no you need to adjust the flux capacitor timing to the jigglemawhat experience. then you take .kjr file and put in the helitight complex which will you give you the aimbot resistance for the hardness of the clouds,
that's what all that sounds like to me
keep up the good work :salute :salute
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So to recap, Loco Moto never told Fugitive his in game name and the subject of the post was successfully diverted, lol
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Hitech,
I RTFM'd L3DT, so am simply waiting for my trial license and download directions to come in vis e-mail. I set the height for vast terrains in the settings for air simms.
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From AH -> L3dt
Open L3dt Pro and select "File > Import > Heightfield" and point it towards the "height.raw" file.
Enter "660" in the Horizontal Scale data box. Click "ok"
Enter "4096" for both the Width and Height
Set mode to "16-bit signed" with the "Invert Y Axis" checkbox checked. Click "Ok"
Now you can edit the height field in L3DT
Getting your Heightfield from L3DT back into AH.
-Choose "File > Export > active map layer"
-Select "Raw" as your File format and select the directory where you want to export it.
-Click the option button and set mode to "16-bit Signed (manual scale)" and "Invert Y" to "true"
-Export the Raw file and name it "height.raw" and place in your working terrain folder.
-Open the AH editor and Click on import to import the modified height map.
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So to recap, Loco Moto never told Fugitive his in game name and the subject of the post was successfully diverted, lol
Best bomb'n bail strat map EVAAAAaaaaaaaah! :bolt:
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I may just have to get into map making...
You could make some real-world maps that are balanced. That would be a cool change...
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I may just have to get into map making...
You could make some real-world maps that are balanced. That would be a cool change...
The old Baltic map always had good action.
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So to recap, Loco Moto never told Fugitive his in game name and the subject of the post was successfully diverted, lol
I know right! LOL!
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Dale and bustr out here I hijacking threads ;)
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Best bomb'n bail strat map EVAAAAaaaaaaaah! :bolt:
Unfortunately very true. I'm one of the most virulent anti bomb 'n' bailers you'll ever meet, but even I am tempted. Given 3 minute resup time on strat damage, I want to make use of the damage I've done before it goes away. :(
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Dale and bustr out here I hijacking threads ;)
Just figured I'd share the wonderfulness of the fact that everyone is qualified to build a terrain with no experience what so ever. All I did was open the program and started pushing buttons to see what broke. There are a number of ways to do it, and to enumerate them.
1. - This is how I created my first ever MA terrain.
Manually lay down large swaths of land with a 6 mile diameter brush on a 250,000 square mile(4096x4096 pixel) project space. I did that and it took me a month to get the gross land masses laid down and another month nibbling away the edges, while creating a new clip board map each time to check the results. It took another month to sculpt the finished terrain features, then a month to paint the thing. The rest of the time was tied up in laying done bases and spawns, then testing the whole assumption called the terrain. Fortunately those months of practice made the changes to the terrain that Hitech wanted take about 7 days. And adding the battleships only a few more days.
2. - This is what I've been posting the latest screen captures of to kill time waiting for my temporary license from L3DT.
Create a PNG format heightmap in grayscale as a 4096x4096 art file. Massage it, then convert it to raw format, then import it into the terrain editor. Then create a clip board map to see how that turned out. Then probably massage the PNG file numerous more times. And generate clip board maps to check out your work. You can actually create the whole thing as a JPEG 4096x4096 file then convert that to a grayscale PNG file. I work faster in a JPEG art program called Paint.Net than I do in one called Krita where I do the conversion to PNG. It's probably because I used Paint.Net to create my gunsights all of these years.
3. - This is the preferred method as recommended by Hitech.
Go to the L3DT webpage and submit a request for a temporary 90 day license to review the professional version of L3DT. It is an editor similar to the AH3 terrain editor in which you can create your 3D terrain and export it as a heightmap which imported into the terrain editor will produce a stunning MA terrain. Then you navigate it to perform touch ups, paint it and set in place all of your bases, fleets and spawns. A single license for L3DT is about $35 if you decide you like it.
Hijacking, naw, just trying to get you gents to stop whizzing at each other over ridiculous BS. If you want a terrain that does everything you want in the MA, fire up the terrain editor and create it like I did. Unless you "pay someone" to do exactly what you want, they will always build their terrain to make themselves happy playing on it in the MA.
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Just figured I'd share the wonderfulness of the fact that everyone is qualified to build a terrain with no experience what so ever. All I did was open the program and started pushing buttons to see what broke. There are a number of ways to do it, and to enumerate them.
1. - This is how I created my first ever MA terrain.
Manually lay down large swaths of land with a 6 mile diameter brush on a 250,000 square mile(4096x4096 pixel) project space. I did that and it took me a month to get the gross land masses laid down and another month nibbling away the edges, while creating a new clip board map each time to check the results. It took another month to sculpt the finished terrain features, then a month to paint the thing. The rest of the time was tied up in laying done bases and spawns, then testing the whole assumption called the terrain. Fortunately those months of practice made the changes to the terrain that Hitech wanted take about 7 days. And adding the battleships only a few more days.
2. - This is what I've been posting the latest screen captures of to kill time waiting for my temporary license from L3DT.
Create a PNG format heightmap in grayscale as a 4096x4096 art file. Massage it, then convert it to raw format, then import it into the terrain editor. Then create a clip board map to see how that turned out. Then probably massage the PNG file numerous more times. And generate clip board maps to check out your work. You can actually create the whole thing as a JPEG 4096x4096 file then convert that to a grayscale PNG file. I work faster in a JPEG art program called Paint.Net than I do in one called Krita where I do the conversion to PNG. It's probably because I used Paint.Net to create my gunsights all of these years.
3. - This is the preferred method as recommended by Hitech.
Go to the L3DT webpage and submit a request for a temporary 90 day license to review the professional version of L3DT. It is an editor similar to the AH3 terrain editor in which you can create your 3D terrain and export it as a heightmap which imported into the terrain editor will produce a stunning MA terrain. Then you navigate it to perform touch ups, paint it and set in place all of your bases, fleets and spawns. A single license for L3DT is about $35 if you decide you like it.
Hijacking, naw, just trying to get you gents to stop whizzing at each other over ridiculous BS. If you want a terrain that does everything you want in the MA, fire up the terrain editor and create it like I did. Unless you "pay someone" to do exactly what you want, they will always build their terrain to make themselves happy playing on it in the MA.
hey bustr thats all fine and dandy but you shouldnt feel like you have to explain yourself. I mean I get it we all want love but damn. :x
As for HT and you hijacking the thread well the thread is dead. If yall wanna carry secret squirrel transmission in public find another thread. Its rude to the OP :devil :bolt:
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hey bustr thats all fine and dandy but you shouldnt feel like you have to explain yourself. I mean I get it we all want love but damn. :x
As for HT and you hijacking the thread well the thread is dead. If yall wanna carry secret squirrel transmission in public find another thread. Its rude to the OP :devil :bolt:
There is a substantive theme to this for the game's health or I wouldn't waste my time on you gents. Building a terrain for the MA is easy, almost anyone can do it. Hitech is selling a game to a broad spectrum of customer ability versus a targeted high end group. This means the free content tools are scaled to allow the largest cross section of the community use them. I admit on user manual creation day someone went on vacation, still, these tools are simple enough you can push buttons and figure them out quickly like I did.
Hijacking this post, no, "showing and telling" that you have the solution to the OP's complaints in the Aces High III folder. Players with subscriptions build the terrains, I don't see any of you cutting a check so the few players who still build terrains will become the OP's construction robot. Since I've been adding to POSTS with screen shots and terrain building information, a number of players have started POSTS in the Terrain Editor forum asking for help with terrain building.
So, how's your latest masterpiece going......
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Bustr was bustin' his bacon on that terrain and it paid off in spades.
:rock
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Fester built a map that made alot of fights and action of all sorts yet people ran it down in a thread and when he defend him self kinda like bustr is right now he got crushed even more funny how that works the big difference is though festers map was out for some time and was just old like any other map people was just tired of it like every other map this thread was started way to soon the map is still new to everyone give it time until everyone plays it enough they will find boring like all maps. and that is no disrespect to bustr either im just saying
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Fester built a map that made alot of fights and action of all sorts yet people ran it down in a thread and when he defend him self kinda like bustr is right now he got crushed even more funny how that works the big difference is though festers map was out for some time and was just old like any other map people was just tired of it like every other map this thread was started way to soon the map is still new to everyone give it time until everyone plays it enough they will find boring like all maps. and that is no disrespect to bustr either im just saying
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv167/cspvisland/djr49.jpg)
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May I get a bit back on topic? :noid
In particular on the topic of the rear / ridge strats. As I already mentioned, the large city makes now for a great long range target, especially for a big mission. Actually, because of the distance and in particular the Me 163 coverage, a B-29 mission would almost be mandatory for any serious mission (but then, few players would probably risk their perks in the face of swarming Komets)
But when you take into account the ease of resupply...
I just tested it , you can easily drive a M3 to the middle of the City in 5 minutes. (If you avoid ramming the occasional tree, even somewhat quicker :noid)
That means whatever damage is done to the city, it takes
1 player 60 minutes (= 1 manhour)
2 players 40 minutes (= 1.3 manhours)
3 players 30 minutes (= 1.5 manhours)
5 players 25 minutes (=2.1 manhours)
A B-29 run at altitude on this map takes about 2 hours to fly. Even when you are not instantly put back in the tower by the fierce ack or the Me 163s, it still rather pointless when just 3 players undo all your damage in just half an hour.
I would, at least, urgently suggest the removal of the GV spawn s to the city.
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Or, wait for Buzzsaw where the city is a convenient 4 minute drive away.
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Fester built a map that made alot of fights and action of all sorts yet people ran it down in a thread and when he defend him self kinda like bustr is right now he got crushed even more funny how that works the big difference is though festers map was out for some time and was just old like any other map people was just tired of it like every other map this thread was started way to soon the map is still new to everyone give it time until everyone plays it enough they will find boring like all maps. and that is no disrespect to bustr either im just saying
Festers map was complained about for the same reason Bustr's is, uneven play.
Fester's issues was a single player could and often did knock out the radar for a whole country for hours on end. Bustr's issue is the opposite. A single player can undo the damage a buff can do to the strats much much quicker than the time it takes to do the damage.
Festers map would have to be rebuilt to add spawns, or maybe just change the time (tho having different rebuild times on different maps would really confuse everyone) plus being such a large map is what got it pulled.
This game is suppose to be basically "fair". For every attack option there should be a defense option. The "ying and the yang". If someone wants to take the time to hit strats it should take the same amount of time to repair it. It takes the same amount of time to defend it.... climbing to alt and laying in wait for the bombers. After all, that is one of the reasons for ENY right, to try and keep things "fair"?
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May I get a bit back on topic? :noid
In particular on the topic of the rear / ridge strats. As I already mentioned, the large city makes now for a great long range target, especially for a big mission. Actually, because of the distance and in particular the Me 163 coverage, a B-29 mission would almost be mandatory for any serious mission (but then, few players would probably risk their perks in the face of swarming Komets)
But when you take into account the ease of resupply...
I just tested it , you can easily drive a M3 to the middle of the City in 5 minutes. (If you avoid ramming the occasional tree, even somewhat quicker :noid)
That means whatever damage is done to the city, it takes
1 player 60 minutes (= 1 manhour)
2 players 40 minutes (= 1.3 manhours)
3 players 30 minutes (= 1.5 manhours)
5 players 25 minutes (=2.1 manhours)
A B-29 run at altitude on this map takes about 2 hours to fly. Even when you are not instantly put back in the tower by the fierce ack or the Me 163s, it still rather pointless when just 3 players undo all your damage in just half an hour.
I would, at least, urgently suggest the removal of the GV spawn s to the city.
At the very least. Spawn to radar resup takes less than 3 minutes and I'm assuming troop training is the same (didn't check). The city is the least hit strat since it got hardened in AH3--a lot of players, like me, have apparently decided that the time to target/damage to strat ratio is unsatisfactory and choose to bomb something else; and so removing just the city spawn would have little practical value.
I can't agree with you that the strip strat (or whatever we should call it) makes a great long range target though, lusche. Even if the spawns were gone it'd have distance, flak towers, and 163s working against it. As things stand an noe jabo to radar or training is the only practical way in, and that only if you have time to kill.
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At the very least. Spawn to radar resup takes less than 3 minutes and I'm assuming troop training is the same (didn't check). The city is the least hit strat since it got hardened in AH3--a lot of players, like me, have apparently decided that the time to target/damage to strat ratio is unsatisfactory and choose to bomb something else; and so removing just the city spawn would have little practical value.
I can't agree with you that the strip strat (or whatever we should call it) makes a great long range target though, lusche. Even if the spawns were gone it'd have distance, flak towers, and 163s working against it. As things stand an noe jabo to radar or training is the only practical way in, and that only if you have time to kill.
So are you saying your looking for an easy target to hit that will do maximum damage to another team?
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When you gents can figure out a way that one guy's single finger salute won't screw 50-100 guy's evening, since we know it won't be one guy once a night if it's easy to do. Remember the Fester map and Hitech had to intervene and change the HQ settings for all terrains just before AH3 went live? I will build that rational so single finger salute griefers can plaster the HQ\city into oblivion and not screw over the majority of the paying customers who you want shooting at each other and creating activity. Group activity has a tendency to inspire more group activity.
I'm prototyping a 6 layer 4096x4096 PNG template right now so I can rapidly layout 2D land masses and bases, then adjust for 19-25 mile placements. This will result in a 1:1 blueprint I can submit to Hitech for proof of concept and subsequent building of the terrain. Bowlma supported my observation that the "current generation of players" with numbers occasional up to 250 at prime time will engage in activity if the majority of air bases are 3\4 of a sector and below 2k. They stop hiding above 15k and race to capture feilds with the subsequent furballing and tankballing that activity generates. I'm building for the masses to keep them active since activity by the masses is attractive to new players.
Now I'm looking at the Micronesia island chains to give the CV and BB task groups more places to get in trouble and promote activity out of the current generation majority who wants "quicker action". That's what bowlma does for them with their smaller numbers and they happily generate activity. The one downside, they happily go through that map like a goose eating too much grass with the end result. So now I'm looking at Micronesia to give them some more grass to eat.
You can complain or open your terrain editor and put an end to your complaint.
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You can complain or open your terrain editor and put an end to your complaint.
And you can stop hijacking the thread I began.
The issues I and others have brought up re:strats are legitimates ones. Please feel free to offer up your opinions on my comments, but don't try to change the topic into something it's not.
Spawns need to go away at the "chain strats" (semi-centralized? got to work on the name for it). AT MINIMUM.
HT put strats in the game for very good reason. If you want to essentially make them non-existent by putting them waaay in the back and far more heavily defended than they are on any other map, that's your prerogative, though I'm very much hoping HT realizes you went a bridge too far and adjusts that. But you don't get to try to stifle legitimate complaints by changing the subject. That's #2 in HT's list of non-nos for thread discussion.
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I'm not, I'm giving you the fastest way to get what you want without demanding Hitech force players who build content for the game to be "your slave". Hitech does not pay us anything for the work we do to provide content for the service we pay him to access.
I'm almost finished with my Micronesia research and hopefully L3DT will e-mail me my 90 day license this week to use their terrain building application. Supposedly that will speed up my production time. And I'll happily provide you the master PGN project file Ive created so you can rapidly 2D prototype your terrain design in a 1:1 format. You sound like you know exactly how to build strat runner centric terrains to suit your idea of the perfect AH3 arena, and the group in the Terrain Editor forum will help you with everything terrain editor. The addition of your strat runner centric design will help keep the community from getting bored and most likely not be a BuzzsawII. You win and the community wins.
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Strats being out of reach just pushes more people to log off. the strat runner guys dont like it so why play, the base taking crowd dont like it so why play. if your a fighter pilot or GV guy great you are gonna have a good time. if you are a base taker or strat runner enjoy that single finger salute.
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I'm not (hijacking the thread), I'm giving you the fastest way to get what you want...
Of course you are, "If you don't like it, build your own" would have sufficed, instead of many posts and several paragraphs on terrain building and what you are yourself currently doing in that regard. Make your own topic on terrain building and entitle it "Terrain Building! Join Me In This Noble Endeavor!" I hope it gets a big following from people (unlike me) who know how to use computers and cell phones beyond the absolute bare bone basics. That's not hyperbole--ask my wife and squaddies. :bhead
Anyway, back on topic, I'm clearly not the only one who feels the current strat layout is (ahem) less than optimal. You've done everything HT would let you to make the strats as much of a non-issue as possible and apparently tried to do even more (making strats covered by impenetrable clouds 80% of the time). I get it that your reason for this was to try to create a more dynamic game play atmosphere, but if the buff pilots and base takers are less inclined to play, have you helped or hurt in that regard?
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bro you don't know bustr, he will write out a lot of text...doesn't mean he's hijacking
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:aok THANK YOU Bustr :rock Not kissing butt, I just appreciate the effort you put into your version of "Do something other than whine"! This map has worked for me. I have found a lot of great fights since it has been in rotation. Is it perfect? Nope, and pretty sure none could be, is it better than what I could have done? YEP, I believe so :salute Thanks again, Sir
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Festers map was complained about for the same reason Bustr's is, uneven play.
Fester's issues was a single player could and often did knock out the radar for a whole country for hours on end. Bustr's issue is the opposite. A single player can undo the damage a buff can do to the strats much much quicker than the time it takes to do the damage.
Festers map would have to be rebuilt to add spawns, or maybe just change the time (tho having different rebuild times on different maps would really confuse everyone) plus being such a large map is what got it pulled.
This game is suppose to be basically "fair". For every attack option there should be a defense option. The "ying and the yang". If someone wants to take the time to hit strats it should take the same amount of time to repair it. It takes the same amount of time to defend it.... climbing to alt and laying in wait for the bombers. After all, that is one of the reasons for ENY right, to try and keep things "fair"?
Remember this........... It's only fair if the "Fur Ball" is not infringed upon
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Remember this........... It's only fair if the "Fur Ball" is not infringed upon
You have zero clue as to why the numbers are so low in game....wish you guys were around when we had huge fights over bases instead of the base takers avoiding any combat which drove the furballers away to give us these low numbers...
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You have zero clue as to why the numbers are so low in game....wish you guys were around when we had huge fights over bases instead of the base takers avoiding any combat which drove the furballers away to give us these low numbers...
Avoiding combat drives furballers away? Please step away from the keyboard and light your computer on fire :ahand
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Avoiding combat drives furballers away? Please step away from the keyboard and light your computer on fire :ahand
Furballers look for fights. When players avoid combat, there are fewer fights. No fights, no furballers. Junky's logic is ironclad.
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Furballers look for fights. When players avoid combat, there are fewer fights. No fights, no furballers. Junky's logic is ironclad.
To piggy back this. Around 6-10 years ago the game was way bigger than now. There was ALOT of people who only played this game for Dogfights or simply a2a combat. When gameplay changed where made most quit over a period of time this in turned cause the issue to get worse because there wasn't much action.
It's simple really. I log on, if I see a Dar bar I head towards it. If I don't see a dar bar that's substantially red I'll just log off. I bet a few others do the same
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To piggy back this. Around 6-10 years ago the game was way bigger than now. There was ALOT of people who only played this game for Dogfights or simply a2a combat. When gameplay changed where made most quit over a period of time this in turned cause the issue to get worse because there wasn't much action.
It's simple really. I log on, if I see a Dar bar I head towards it. If I don't see a dar bar that's substantially red I'll just log off. I bet a few others do the same
Absolute insanity! Happy to be apart of what has "killed" the game according to the like of you!.
Type of argument you expect from arcade style players who accept the time commitment AH demands but expects a 24/7 flow of like minded players not focused on the strategic aspects of the MA. Hitechcreations gave up on keeping numbers high long ago and slowly the game lost chunks of subscribers that kept the game full in its hey day. So all you cry baby tools got now is to blame those who found entertainment beyond your experience/style of play.
What's always been a kickin the nadz tovwhat ypu call "non-combative" folks are Dale and his minions ability to hide behind the curtain and allow public opinion to wear itself out all the while maintaining the business plan that was set forth. Whatever that is it worked cause the office is still open and the game is back in a day when the office takes cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.
Dont blame players working around you to win the war for pathetic numbers overall. Call it for what it really is or keep drinking the kool aid!
You get off on a few minutes of air superior glory. I get off on the stuff that is overlooked and leads to map resets 1 base , 12 bases, 3 days, 5 days later.
Holding a bish/knit horde for 3 days and resetting the map in the morning of the 4th day.
Sneaking that one base no one thought of when all we needed was 1 and got bogged down on both fronts and the strat run you made that lead to a country rally on a Saturday afternoon.
The porking ords/dar, shutting bases down, white flagging towns, cv hunting, hq pwning. IT ALL KILLS THA NUMBAS :ahand
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To piggy back this. Around 6-10 years ago the game was way bigger than now. There was ALOT of people who only played this game for Dogfights or simply a2a combat. When gameplay changed where made most quit over a period of time this in turned cause the issue to get worse because there wasn't much action.
It's simple really. I log on, if I see a Dar bar I head towards it. If I don't see a dar bar that's substantially red I'll just log off. I bet a few others do the same
The best time to make a large dar bar is when the map is quiet. Grab a friend and try to take a base. Be good enough to actually take it and more times than not you find the gigantic dar bar you seek regardless of the #'s. The sneaky ones always take the base when the enemy has #'s!
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Absolute insanity! Happy to be apart of what has "killed" the game according to the like of you!.
Type of argument you expect from arcade style players who accept the time commitment AH demands but expects a 24/7 flow of like minded players not focused on the strategic aspects of the MA. Hitechcreations gave up on keeping numbers high long ago and slowly the game lost chunks of subscribers that kept the game full in its hey day. So all you cry baby tools got now is to blame those who found entertainment beyond your experience/style of play.
What's always been a kickin the nadz tovwhat ypu call "non-combative" folks are Dale and his minions ability to hide behind the curtain and allow public opinion to wear itself out all the while maintaining the business plan that was set forth. Whatever that is it worked cause the office is still open and the game is back in a day when the office takes cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.
Dont blame players working around you to win the war for pathetic numbers overall. Call it for what it really is or keep drinking the kool aid!
You get off on a few minutes of air superior glory. I get off on the stuff that is overlooked and leads to map resets 1 base , 12 bases, 3 days, 5 days later.
Holding a bish/knit horde for 3 days and resetting the map in the morning of the 4th day.
Sneaking that one base no one thought of when all we needed was 1 and got bogged down on both fronts and the strat run you made that lead to a country rally on a Saturday afternoon.
The porking ords/dar, shutting bases down, white flagging towns, cv hunting, hq pwning. IT ALL KILLS THA NUMBAS :ahand
Yikes there's no talking to a guy who says he's holding off a horde for 3 days when the game drops to single digit amount of players online around 4 AM in the morning.
Used to be 60 to 100 during those times...when I was in Korea in 2009 I could find a fight at 4am EST easy...now I can't at 10 EST because people are avoiding person on person combat like it is a bad disease. The problem is base taking tactics avoids all combat these days....
Don't get me wrong, I already put up another thread about the furballers who ruin it so people who arent that good in fighters avoid that part of the game by only flying from the advantage in low ENY rides.
Not a total fault but avoiding combat to take a base or defend it(like M3 resupply) is by far the BIGGEST issue in the game right now.
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Used to be 60 to 100 during those times...when I was in Korea in 2009 I could find a fight at 4am EST easy...now I can't at 10 EST because people are avoiding person on person combat like it is a bad disease. The problem is base taking tactics avoids all combat these days....
Base taking tactics back in the day were not much different inasmuch they tried to maximise success at minimizing risk. That's why around that time we did see the heydays of the NOE.
These days it's just more room and the inability of any given side to muster forces for combat both fronts that leads to much more opportunities for easy basegrabbing.
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Base taking tactics back in the day were not much different inasmuch they tried to maximise success at minimizing risk. That's why around that time we did see the heydays of the NOE.
These days it's just more room and the inability of any given side to muster forces for combat both fronts that leads to much more opportunities for easy basegrabbing.
That definitely is part of it but there is for sure a mentality of people in the community who will avoid combat at all cost more then they ever used to...example is a CV hitting a field and the first guy defending it ups an M3 to resupply town...I don't care what anyone says...that's not combat.
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That definitely is part of it but there is for sure a mentality of people in the community who will avoid combat at all cost more then they ever used to...example is a CV hitting a field and the first guy defending it ups an M3 to resupply town...I don't care what anyone says...that's not combat.
Not in the strict sense, of course. ;)
But I still don't thinks it's because of 'the players'.
For one it's because the tool is available - and with now largely untouched cities it's much more potent than ever before. In the past you needed more than just 1-2 M3 loads to resupply your town. And another thing is the potentially greater imbalance of attackers vs defenders, which is caused by much smaller overall numbers.
So when there's a CV in front of my base and I see 3-4 players attacking my base, and I can't have much hope to get any kind of reinforcement, the m3 suddenly looks like a very attractive option to spoil their grab.
IMHO there's much to be lamented about the gameplay experience available these days, but I think it's mostly because of 'external' factors, and not the fault of the playerbase.
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I think there are tweaks to the MA that will influence these players more, like nerfing the resupply so it's not as big of a thing in the tactics of the game ect ect ect.
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Base taking tactics back in the day were not much different inasmuch they tried to maximise success at minimizing risk. That's why around that time we did see the heydays of the NOE.
These days it's just more room and the inability of any given side to muster forces for combat both fronts that leads to much more opportunities for easy basegrabbing.
The heydays of the NOEs is another cause of the same issue...... avoiding fights. We all know what happened back then. NOEs were the go to mission and fights were hard to come by..... picture a game of wack a mole...... HTC slammed the dar to the deck! You couldnt take off from a nearby base with out showing a dot.
HTC relented and we got the dar we have today. Seems like they wanted a bit of combat in the game.
Lusche mentioned the CV senario and the M3 looking like an attractive option due to the lack of numbers/defenders. This brings up another point. Todays players seem to be more goal orientated. For them saving the base is the goal. For many other players like me the FIGHT for the base is what is important. It doesnt really matter who ends up with the base, it the combat that action brought about.
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Also there's a match play arena if you guys want instant action :)
Edit: I still think there needs to be some fine tuning with the current system inside the MA. But if Your complaining about no action come to the Match Play. There's action if people are in it. My process is log on to ma no action go to match play. No action? Log off
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Also there's a match play arena if you guys want instant action :)
:cheers:
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Also there's a match play arena if you guys want instant action :)
Edit: I still think there needs to be some fine tuning with the current system inside the MA. But if Your complaining about no action come to the Match Play. There's action if people are in it. My process is log on to ma no action go to match play. No action? Log off
There are other arenas if you do not want to fight also.
Maybe they should change the Melee arena to something softer and more serene.
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Also there's a match play arena if you guys want instant action :)
I never see anyone in there.
Not that it matters to me personally ;)
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I never see anyone in there.
Not that it matters to me personally ;)
May be coming in at a different hour. I always see bout 6 when I log in.