Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: humble on June 28, 2000, 08:26:00 AM
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Have my first serious question about direction of this game. Got up early this morning and logged on for a couple...ended up defending 18 from the niggit's. It evolved into a ground attack and i hopped into a hog. Now I killed a m3 on 1 pass...but on multiple occasions I made 4-5 pass's on a panzer with multiple hit flashs with no damage...for me the bottom line is simple...if I cant kill it from the air, I don't want it in the game. Tanks are fun ...once in awhile. I also used rockets and bombs to no avail. i'm perfectly content to work on skills...but i counted at least 20 flashs on multiple tanks with no damage.
As a sidebar...is tank commander subject to death if he's firing that mg...doesn't seem like it.
All I'm asking is don't lose sight of what this sim is...tanks are great...but give me a reasonable chance to kill em.
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Humble, come to the TA with me, I'll show you how to kill a tank by strafing it, or , ask Cobra, he did a fine job last night with the Tiffy.
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I find that a single 500 lb bomb does a nice job on tanks, but requires a direct hit.
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Yeah BD,
I was going to say that bombs and rockets kill them quite easily.
The only account I have read about aircraft attacking a tank with machine guns was in Anderson's book To Fly and Fight.
Three of them made multiple passes at the tank with no effect.
Sharky
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with this release, tanks are perfect. Don't change them (except add more!) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Humble,
Rip is right, they can be killed. The Cannon Hawg still does a decent job of it (while not as good as before this release, but I like it better now anyway for gameplay issues). The Tiffy does a nice job as well, just not as good as the Cannon Hawg. Even a Spitfire will get a kill if you land the shots just right.
To kill the tank you have to hit them from the rear in the engine compartment. Hit them there and you will get a kill on 2 passes for sure. If you are attacking them from the rear and don't get the kill, then you are missing the engine area. You can also knock out the turret or driver with an approach from any other angle, you just won't get that nice explosion.
A smart tank driver (<S> Rip) will try not to give that aspect shot, or will try to use terrain (a hill) to back his arse into so that you can't get the shot that easy.
Rockets and bombs will kill a tank as well.
Last week, a squadmate and myself, made formation strafing runs on some tanks in spits, and then later in Cannon Hawgs. It proved to be a very effective air-to-ground way of dealing with those tankers. It also highlighted for me how great it would be to have other strat targets to strafe and bomb/rocket such as trains, rail depots, bridges. That formation strafing is alot of fun.
Cobra
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Now that it's easier/possible for ack to kill tanks/M16/M3, I don't mind that it's tougher to kill one with an AC. I am just glad we no longer see tanks sitting on a field with all ack batteries firing on it and never taking any damage.
Mickey
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Agree with Zigrat -- AH tanks have been tuned to perfection. Big fun! (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
popeye
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I love tanks the way they are now.
very fun w no icons and sneaking about hehe
the m3's have added so much to the game too.
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Was at A10 very late last night... I could see on the sector bar that there was an enemy nearby, and I could see the ack was dropping, but nothing was visible. I took 5 minutes of searching to locate him (AKMystick). When I did, I made multiple passes with my P47, to no avail. He hit my rudder and engine and I landed (though the "you must be stopped" bug forced me to bail and gave him the kill- and I was on the runway! hehe). I came back in the 1C and worked him over. He kept turning the tank, and with a single hit wounded my pilot. After a few more drunken passes I finally got him.
Bottom line is I like them as they are. Tankers now have a reasonable chance to get through to accomplish a mission, but can be killed. You have to be wary of radar on lonely fields, because sneak attacks can occur at any time. M3's can sneak under a fighter CAP and steal a base if you don't watch. All-in-all very cool!
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Hmm F4C's seem to pop my tank 1st pass every time...
Only change i would like to see is No icons for ground vehicles at any time. With the exception of friendly units of course.
Red really stands out against the nice green terrain.
SKurj
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Thanx for all the feedback guys, obviously I'm in the minority here. I made my passes from a number of approach vectors so I'm certain that I had little chance of hitting the engine area...on the other hand I did hose the tank pretty good...so you can kill the gunner? Rip I'll definately look for you or cobra if I have problems ... but 1st i'll work on hitting engine area. I'd think any top armour surface would suffice with the 4 x 20mm from hog..but i'll hit the damm engine grate (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif).
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3 words:
Forward Air Controller!
I think we should loose the icons for enemy vehicles from aircraft for certain.
we certainly have no trouble spotting other vehicles while in a vehicle or seeing vehicles with the icons off from aircraft.
the icons just makes spotting a 100% sure thing if in range.
makes vehicles even more vital in spotting ground activity.
or you would need a good spotter keep track of the vehicles and to call in strikes on groun pounders.
Aces High keeps moving towards what seems to be more realistic gameplay which is really awsome
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Can we still do something about the .ef situation though?
Tank spawns at VH, gets 3 hits on him, he .ef's... only to respawn, get 3 hits on him and .ef... only to respawn, get 3 hits on him and .ef... only to respawn, get 3 hits on him, and .ef... only to respwn and blow my now AP-less Panzer outta the water.
I'm not complaining about the fact that he could respawn and come at me... it's just that he should be penalized for ditching. As it was, he had nothing to lose by depleting my ammo like this.
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"panzers to hard to kill"???? ive killed a few panzers in my zero, cant be that hard.
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Do they still run down hills at 300 mph? Once I saw guys gaming that feature I gave up on dweebhicles.
[This message has been edited by funked (edited 06-28-2000).]
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Torquila spring the coin for AH ya Ho dweeb... (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Nash,
If you're hitting those tanks, you should get kills when they ditch.
popeye
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Originally posted by funked:
Do they still run down hills at 300 mph? Once I saw guys gaming that feature I gave up on dweebhicles.
[This message has been edited by funked (edited 06-28-2000).]
So if you give up on every vehicle that you find people gaming...What are you gonna drive or fly funked???
Seems to me every ride has had its dweeblets in control.
Ping <who doesnt understand funkeds position>
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Ping my position is simple. I have no interest in playing a tank game with a vehicle dynamics model that is so poor. The planes are great, as good as anything in the industry. But the tanks are arcadish at best.
This is not an "HTC Sux" post. I realize they are short of time and people. I'm not going to quit because I don't like the tanks. Until they have the time to bring them up to snuff, I just don't drive them, and avoid interacting with them at all.
[This message has been edited by funked (edited 06-28-2000).]
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Popeye, that's suprising. So .ef's already ARE counted as kills when you've damaged them? I definately *was* getting pings, but no kills. Happened about 4 times within' the span of 5 minutes. Something's buggy with that then.
I only get maybe 30% of the vicinity auger kills (no damage to the other plane by myself or anyone else) that I should be... and have just shrugged it off as a win some, lose some. Maybe these two things are related somehow.
I dunno... but despite the weirdness, I'm glad HTC has at least addressed this.
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Originally posted by Torque:
Torquila spring the coin for AH ya Ho dweeb... (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Stop picking on me you meanies!, ur all a bunch of bullies!!! (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/tongue.gif)
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The tank is definatly harder to kill. 2 to 3 passer per for me in a 1c. I like the 1c alot better now. Not so deadly on the snap shot...lets me enjoy the character of the excellent aircraft.
Yes funked they still go 300mph down into 27..
I am too incompatant to man a tank but I love hunting em. Love it more now that they fight back and are much harder to kill.
Love it even more chasing em at 260mph into 27!!!!
try hunting em at 27 with your typhy funked...its arcady but its a hoot. Sorta like swatting cliff diveing lemmings with at tennis racket.
Get real fun when they start calling ya names..
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throwing my 2 cents in. I played Warbirds some and DOA during beta. Somthing that really anoyed me in both was that you get some who seem to have guided bullets and Kevlar armor. I would pound them and they would fly right on by, then before I could get the plane turned around they would be on my 6 and with just a couple pings, I'd be dead. Another problem, more noticed in Warbirds and Aces High, then DOA was bouncy planes. The plane seem steady while flying and even coming up on any enemy. But just as the target gets in gun range and I fire, my plane starts bobing up and down making it very hard stay on target. I never have been able to figure that one out.
When Aces High started beta, I tried it a few times, but it didn't take long before I was again getting shot down every time shortly after take off. It seemed my plane was made of papper and I was fireing blanks. The target just about fills my screen, It looks like most of the shots are hitting, and I can't even get smoke out of them. They send a few tracers over and I'm back at the tower. I gave up on th egame because I don't find that fun.
When the game was about to go live, I decided to give it another try. But I could not get it to play on a computer behind Nat32 and after several unanswered request for the port numbers that need to be opened beyond what I all ready had open for another game, I again gave up.
Now the tanks have been added and I'm back trying again. Looks like some changes where made to the network code because now it will at least get through on TCP with the ports I have opened. I still need to open some UDP ports and asked in game, but no one seemed to know.
Now I have another problem though. After a random amount of time, I loose my joystick requiring a reboot to get it back. Somthing is stomping on the drivers as once it's gone, windows won't reconize it even manually added. It just says not connected. Again I made several post about it and as of last night, the only responce was 1 other player who as seen this a few times. I havn't checked yet today to see if my lastest info got a responce.
As for the tanks, they are more fun then the planes in that I have a much better chance in them. Even got a few kills, both against aircraft and another tank. As for the speeds, first few times I went flying down a hill, I kept expecting the engine to blow which they never did. But there is a risk with going too fast. If you turn just a little bit, you go for a tumble. I have rolled several panz and M16's and even cart wheeled an M16 offline.
Two things I think could use changing here. First, engines should do a little better job at holding speed back. If you down shift, they do some what, but not that much. Second, over reving should do damage to the engines. They model this in the Nascar games.
In general, I would like to see the time in unit after crash increased. When you crash a plane, you are back at the tower the second you hit. When you roll a truck or tank, you are back at tower before it is upside down. People do servive rolls a lot better then that and rolls don't distroy tanks, though they make take damage if in fast hard rolls. If the crash or roll is bad enough to kill, then it should still not kick you back to tower at least until the unit has stoped and preferably, not auto send you back at all. Simply give a message that your are dead and you have to select tower from the clip board.
This last point is sure to ruffle a lot of feathers, and that is the cost. Yes I know it requires a lot of man hours, but all good games do be they offline or online games. And yes I know there is cost in equipment for the servers and internet connections. But at $30/month, that's about like buying the game over again every month. I buy 1-2 games a year at most and I play them a lot longer then 1 month. Some of us are not made of money. With boxed games, they sell the game once and that's it. They won't get any more from that person for that game. They go back, start over, spend many more man hours on a new game and the cycle continues. Unlike offline games, a major part of what makes this or any online game is the number of people in the game at any given time. And the fewer who can afford to play, the fewer players you have keeping the game from being a ghost town which only servers to drive the remaining players away. Take a lesson from Quicken and Peach Tree. Peach Tree was on top for accounting software back when they all charged hundreds of dollars, including Quicken. But Quicken realized it would be better to make their money over a larger customer base then try to get it out of a rich few and so they droped their price to somthing like $30 and nearly put Peach Tree under, until they figured out what happened and lowered their price. But they never recovered the market that Quicken gained. Now when ever you bring up the idea of lowering your price to make more money, the companies quickly jump up and down and say, we can't do that and still make money. We'll go under! Will, Quicken dosen't seem to be hirting too much right now. They are the number 1 home/small company software company setting the standars for the rest.
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Vorg-
The answer to your monetary postulation is contained within your quote:
With boxed games, they sell the game once and that's it.
Exactly. No more updates. No new revisions. No real support. No truly challenging opponents.
Fortunately we do have a choice. There are flat-rate games out there, and some of them do a great job of filling the niche. The are great boxed games, too. But if you think HTC isn't growing at the current price, check again. There are approximately 120-150 people on every night when I log in, up a bit from last month. It isn't a ghost town by any means. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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>>Exactly. No more updates. No new revisions.
Seems to me it'd be a lot easyer to revise or make additions to a game then start from scratch on on a whole new game with new graphics core to support the new cards, etc.. Even sequals are really starting from scratch because they get all new code to support the next batch of hardware.
I'm not saying it's not growing, just closing out a market of gamers who would like to join in. I'm sure Peach Tree seemed to be doing good also, until some one else figured out there was a bigger market out there.
How many of the player here, would not be here of Aces High was charging $2/hour like Warbirds?
[This message has been edited by Vorg (edited 06-28-2000).]
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Vorg,
The way I look at Aces High is entertainment, much like going to play golf or go to the movies. I feel this way about AH more than any boxed game (with the exception of R6/EW/RS/UO) because of the interaction that I have with the people in the game. This is something that I don't get from playing against scripted opponents.
The money I spend on AH is no more than my roommate spends on greens fees and such. Do I wish it cost less? Of course, who wouldn't? Do I think it is an outrageous amount of money for what I get out of it? Not by a long shot.
Basically, what it amounts to is getting your moneys worth out of something. I feel that I do with AH, others may not. I personally think it is a steal, considering the support and such that I feel I get here.
Well, that is just my senseless ramblings.
-math
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Originally posted by Vorg:
>>Exactly. No more updates. No new revisions.
Seems to me it'd be a lot easyer to revise or make additions to a game then start from scratch on on a whole new game with new graphics core to support the new cards, etc.. Even sequals are really starting from scratch because they get all new code to support the next batch of hardware.
I'm not saying it's not growing, just closing out a market of gamers who would like to join in. I'm sure Peach Tree seemed to be doing good also, until some one else figured out there was a bigger market out there.
How many of the player here, would not be here of Aces High was charging $2/hour like Warbirds?
[This message has been edited by Vorg (edited 06-28-2000).]
I would not. I play 15rs in most weekends.
Unless they had the 30$us unlimited as well.
[This message has been edited by Pongo (edited 06-28-2000).]
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Not to flog a dead horse, but... isn't the most common development cycle for a game from scratch on the order of 18 months or longer?
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Vorg,
Any good business person will try and identify a need and provide a cost effective solution. When AH started the two primary models were the "realistic" sim Warbirds and the "affordable" sim Air Warrior. Truthfully neither game was satisfying to a significant minority of each population. AH has provided a unique combination of price and performance combined with a slightly altered vision of a WW2 flight sim. To be candid I don't see how AH would benifit by altering it's current business formula. The dissappointing sales of most of the boxed games in this market shows how sophisticated the community is and how little broad based appeal there is. All in all, a great product at a fair price with a tremendous upside potential.
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I don't golf, last moive I went to the theater for was the newest Star Trek, I wait for them to come out on tape and then it's mostly the SciFi. You can look at it any way you want. But you can't spend what you don't have.