Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: hazed- on May 08, 2003, 07:14:40 AM
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Sit in tower looking aimlessly at the same ol planes and think of trying or planning something different to raise the excitement/enjoyment stakes. Make a mission and struggle to get more than 5 or 6 people in it. Give up and grab a fighter.
Fly toward the battle gaining alt etc for a realistic type of attack, see enemy dive in and watch the m dive away toward a huge number of higher cons. 4 or 5 enemy dive on you forcing a break off. Either im then killed or i have to run for 10 minutes from a persistant LA7 who is intent on using HO or anything to kill you.
you either die or you get away only to have to reclimb to high alt for the same thing to happen later.
GET BORED
grab a bomber fly for 40 minutes to get to an even reasonable alt. attacked by a plane with 50 cals who manages in 1 pass to wipe out 2 buffs then 3 or 4 finish off the last one before your near the target.
GET frustrated
grab a late war plane that might just allow you a chance in the heavily outnumbered gang fights. Basically do this for months whilst longing for a more varied game.
there seems to be a very fast moving strat in AH now.No precise attacks with objectives, just massed swarms of conga lines from one base to another. You can either pile in and take your chances or sit in the tower and dream about doing something new.
Im not blaming anyone for this and im sure its also due to a little overuse of the game BUT I really feel theres a HUGE scope for making AH more fun. Simple experiments with the perk system or greater rewards for considered gameplay or mission activity could really change the attitude of players online. This all for yourself attitude is NOTHINg like the way the war was fought. They emphasised TEAMPLAY and sound tactics not gunho ramming and suicide attacks 24/7.
What i see of late is the people who are AVID aircraft and WW2 fans and are often well versed in ACM and well read on the history of the conflict being forced to fly in a way which CANNOT sustain adult interest for very long.AH seems to be changing into a fast paced checkers game where learning the intricasies of the world of wartime aviation is ignored in favour of becoming a fast shootem up player.I love it , furballing etc IS FUN. BUT it cannot sustain longterm interest.
Im beginning to think Laz is right about making an area where furballing is constant and removed from the main 'war'. A place where the quick fix arcade types can fly and fight whilst others more interested in flying in skies reminisant of the real war can get on with an enjoyable attrition/destroying infrastructure and resource war.Flying real formations with similar roles to the real planes.
This is by no means a whine and i dont blame anyone but i felt it had to be said that things are looking ever more bleak as far as im concerned. AH2 on the faceof the minute info i can find about it SOUNDS like a perfect solution where acting/flying in a manner far removed from how they used to in the war will result in a hard time and low score whereas following the behaviour of those old WW2 vets or emulating it closley opens up new avenues of gameplay(ie promotions and rewards). Of course im only ASSUMING this is what will be the aim of AH2 but i cant be sure as i have no clue even whether I have the right idea about it.
basically i felt as a long term customer Id like to know where we are heading and what customer suggestions the HTC crew like or dislike. Do they like laz's ideas? do they want to encourage or discourage the furball mentality? do they realise theres a need for both types of player, furballer and strat men and intend to try to cater for both? will they try to do this in one arena or seperate the groups>?
Can those of us who crave missions or set objectives with a realistic grouping of aircraft (ie b17s and escorts) expect to see more or less of this sort of thing in the future? Is there a possibility that the rather arcade like respawning in such short periods of time of targets and structures will be changed?
will we ever see a building that stays down longer than 30 mins? basically enough time to get home before you need to refly the whole thing.This is the sort of thing i really dislike at the moment in AH. The game is catering for the quick fix fighting so much its becomeing repetative and a little dull.
Cant we try having very much more dangerous to attack bases but with structures that once down STAY down for a REASONABLY realistic time frame? Maybe make SOME bases very well defended with ack BUT also the most pivotal strategic base(maybe the only one with troops?) with other simple grass fields closer together and easy to use (maybe never lose all fuel etc) to cater for those quick fix flights.
This way the big bases would REQUIRE bombers rather than as it is now where the bomber does nothing much more than get used as a big jabo plane and most favour a low level fighter with bombs to do the job bcause they know 10 la7s are going to kill them anyhow. :D
why not make certain areas difficult to destroy without the use of large amounts of ordinance? put a few bases in that jabo is usefull for and a few where jabo would take too many pilots to effect enough damage. Lets have a base or two where dropping bombs from alt is the only way to have a reasonable survival chance? These bases can be the ones near the HQ so they
dont have to be the focus of the war until the finall stages.
I guess im just asking for something to be added or changed to break the same old checkers type game up.Im just getting a tad bored with it and the general behaviour that seems to permeate theMA of late.
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hazed.. we have different tastes but... neither of us likes the newbie steamroller... the strat in AH can be distilled to... the country with the highest numbers is the steamroller.
I dont want objects staying down longer tho because it would simply mean that more fields were simply useless for longer periods of time... that would have the effect of doubling and trippling the allready prohibitive (for furballers) distance between fields and fites.
maybe the new "missun" area will draw away all those who like the "missun" and leave the MA as a quick fix action type of arena which, in my opinion, it was meant to be and what it does best.... when it strays from this and trys to be more is when it ends up pleasing no one... Take WB WWII arena for instance... that abortion has about killed their sim.
lazs
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Trinity needs more carriers. Heck, they all need more carriers. That would shorten the distances between airfields and allow more furballs over the open seas.
Vehicle bases need more vehicle hangars. Vehicle hangars need to be toughened.
We need more than 3 kinds of tanks. Bring the Sherman Calliope to Aces High! Then bring the Pershing as a perk ride!
These simple changes would make Aces High a much more different game.
Seems to me that the steamrolling jabo raids became vogue when the new bombing method was introduced, making it tougher to hit a target from a lumbering heavy. I think pilots who were casual bomber guys stopped bombing and just hopped into a Typhoon, Mustang, or P-47 instead, and hence the steamrolling technique became prevalent. Who would sign up for a heavy bomber mission nowadays? Maybe one or two pilots. The rest would "escort" in heavy fighters.
Frustrated? Fly a Yak9U.
Bored? Fly a 109G10 in Juggernaut configuration (30mm in the nose with a pair of 20mm in gondolas).
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Just my .02, but as the game has drifted farther and farther from an emphasis on ACM, the things you mention as promoting "boredom" have become more and more prevalent.
For example, when did the "massive 50 plane steamroller" technique have its genesis and why? Seems to me, when the days of one relatively small squad sending a few fighters, a buff or two and a goon on a capture mission ended, that tactic was replaced with the "tidal wave attack".
And when did the small squad capture missions become relatively ineffective? When the bombing was made more "realistic", the map room was moved off to a separate location and the fields were "hardened" to prevent easy capture.
While I don't disagree with you, what I'm saying is all of those changes were asked for, nay begged for, and "we" got what we asked for, didn't we?
Kinda goes back to the old "be careful what you ask for, you might get it" saying.
Personally, IMO the "old days" had a much higher "fun" or "interest" quotient.
I think many of the changes clamored for generated a lot of "boredom factor".
But that's just one player's opinion. YMMV.
I do share some of your concerns, however, I think our suggested solutions would differ. ;)
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Well said hazed!!!
I thought I was the only one sitting in the tower bored from the same old la-7 fights..
When every time you up you spend 10 minutes grabbing alt to the fight and 2 minutes running from 15 LA-7's...
It has turned into a flying game-o-Quake IMO..
Hard to get excited about flying Quake anymore just like The real Quake got boring after about a week...
0J0T
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..........about all I can stomach is one or two sorties at most.
After that, ya realize you are just seeing the same thing over and over and over and............well, you get the picture.
At one time, I couldn't wait to have some spare time to log in and fly.
Nowadays, I gotta make myself log in.
But that's just me and how I am feeling about the game lately. I tire of seeing the normal "teamwork" hordes (usually the side with the most players) hovering over bases. Anymore, I just sit in the tower and laugh at them........I figure it must be frustrating for them to fly to a base and not get to vulch anyone, and if it disappoints them as much to not get the easy kills, my job is done.
Guess that is the main reason I applied for the CT Staff. At least in there I can "try" to set up a terrain to influence folks away from the horde mentality. Well, I hope I can..........:p
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My first inclination was to advise you to fly in the CT. It's keeping my interest at least moderately warmed while waiting for AHII. Problem is, some of the newbie types are hanging there now, too. For example, last night I got rammed. I received no damage, but rammer died. Message on channel 1: "Sorry, I was out of ammo". Took a quick look in the CT this morning where there were two others, one each side. Got a ch2 message: "Glad there's another on! I've been going crazy trying to keep him from sneaking the fields back I snuck earlier!"
Oh well. Let's hope AHII brings the fire back.
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Funny how things go sometimes.
I find I still enjoy the game but there are definately things about it (the game) that make if a real challenge. Sometimes Im amazed Im still playing. Im sure HTC is too.
I suppose if I could make just one complaint it would be towards all those people that play AH because its a online game and not because its a working simulation of the golden age in air combat.
Just too many snot-nosed pre-pubescent kids and plain old jack*ssed punks.
to those few left not covered in the two broad generalizations above :D
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well said hazed...although it seems to me that this game has never really tried to be a true sim (e.g. the rather simple aircraft management, bullet counters, distance icon displays, a spit shooting down a B-17[?]) . That being said, perhaps the game has been left to the arcade type who long for quick action and quake style shoot-em-ups. I know, go to the CT or play snapshots...to be honest I have found the CT to have a similar--albeit less--arcade mentallity. As for snapshots, I have enjoyed them, however I play at strage (all) times, thus the timing is usualy not something that works for me.
I for one would rather have historical engagements--or that style--than mass fighters practicing their hand eye co-ordination, but its not my game alone and who am I to dictate how the game should be?
Perhaps the mission arena will be a 24hr place to have snapshot style play with more challenging aircraft management and more realistic tactics--until then I guess I am relegated to finding an increasingly rare ACM fight or interesting mission.
More vehicles or aircraft will not address the problems hazed has discussed. Case in point, for months the AH community screamed and nashed teeth about not having a stuka dive bomber--the threads were many. Now that there is a stuka, how many get flown? Not alot. In fact try to get a mission up with stukas--granted it happened, but once the novelty of the aircraft wore off the foundational problems reappeared, and few to no stukas come off the ground any more. And when a brave soul does attempt to up a stuka it is immediatly swarmed my a mass of late war aircraft, killed and another person thinking: "Boy that's the last time I try that plane again."
The cry for more vehicles or aircraft has become the "Kartago delenda est!" of AH; No matter the subject the answer is more planes, tanks or ships. I say the answer is more attention to actual game play and less attention on novelty game play.
All I ask for at this point is a mission statement from the people over there in TX. Where do they see the game going, and how do they want to get there?
jEEZY
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Any suggestion that varies the strategic value of the fields (targets) --- Has my vote
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Hazed.
I have to confess that I still grab sometime a bomber to bomb some factory, but the time I head back home, and the factory is up again.
The fighter duty, and/or jabo, is impossible out of the Horde, since there's no way you can avoid a mutual gangbang.
No more enjoyable few vs. few fights.
I personally will suggest 2 things:
1) put the strat targets downtime (with the exception of HQ) at no less than 1-2 hours (unless repaired by players), to give the bomb-boys some sense of accomplishment.
2) (hear hear!! :eek: ) Perk 60-70% of the planes, if you want a ufoish La7 or Niki... EARN it!!! And fly it with the fear to lose back those points.
I know... It's fantasy... My fantasy... worth 0.0002 € (well, in reality, it's worth 14.95$, but this does'nt make a lot of difference ;) ).
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Good post. Im not much of a buffer, so I cant relate there... but as a pretty much dedicated fighter junky, I have come to the conclusion that for the past 5-6 months, there are three possibilites when you take off:
1.) Get vulched because you didnt see the red bar in the sector.
2.) Fly 20 minutes to your desination at 15-20K feet, only to have 8-9 La7/Nik/Spit's drop down on you from 30K.
3.) Fly 20 minutes to desination, find no one. Fly 20 minutes home.
I really miss the small, 2v2, 4v4 engagements that were common only a year ago. Now it seems if you see one con, there are always at least 10 around him. The face shooting and ramming whines used to be great for a laugh... but does anyone use ACM anymore? It seems to me that 99% of the fights Im engaged in proceed as follows:
Visual sighting, 100% throttle, head to head merge, I drop underneath con's nose to avoid tracer fire, proceed to counter his first move... a flat turn... ok, simple right? Sure - high yo-yo... Nope... 5 more La7's coming... you need to break off cause you dont want to be caught on the upswing of the turn... but of course you cant disengage and break off because you cant outrun them. So you turn... nope... cant do that either, becuase there's an N1k back there too and he'll eat you. So what are you left with? No options. You franticly enter the world of dweebdom... "There is no way I can survive this engagement intact, so I will take as many of them with me as I can." :(
Its just no fun anymore, and complain and whine all you want, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We asked for bigger maps, we got Pizza. We asked for even countries, we got the perk modifier. We laugh at HO whines, chute shooting whines and vulching for the passed year or so, and suddenly its become common behavior. I dunno what HTC has up their sleeves for AHII, but I certainly hope the new game brings back some of the old "rules" of online flight simming from 5-6 years ago.
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AH hasn't changed that much, I think it's more what the players did with it than the makers. you could have 10 * 5 vs 5 fights (FUN) but instead, it's an endless stream at one base, which ends up in a huge warpfest (NOT FUN).
PS: Sardaukar is spot on as far as I'm concerned.
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>>there seems to be a very fast moving strat in AH now.No precise attacks with objectives, just massed swarms of conga lines from one base to another. You can either pile in and take your chances or sit in the tower and dream about doing something new<<
Hazed:
You just described a regular experience of most; particularly those who are flying for a country which happens to be getting ganged by the other 2 countries.
While you hesitate to blame others, I have no such reservations. I blame the overwhelming mass of players in all countries who do this; it is what has become accepted in the game.
I was up for 3 hops last night; my first was as a gunner on a ship. The last 2 were in fiters at A87, on one of the hops I was in a P47 and dove down to see if I could pick off a defender. Hehe, after I made my pass, a fellow countryman radios me and says: "Strider, you got 5 or 6 on yer tail". LOL! It was as if I stuck my foot in a flea infested seat cushion, and pulled it out full of bugs! This goes on every night, it isn't smart yet, every countries' pilits do it.
For me, at times the fights get boring if the same thing goes on each night, but othertimes there can be some really good fights occur; it is those times that make memorable ocassions for me.
Most times, if I'm getting bored I don't fly for a few weeks. For over 7 years now, that has seemed to do the trick for me.
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Reading the end of your post i got to thinking about something i came up with a while back...
Why not make 1 extra LAGRE all purpose hangar at the medium and large airfields... maybe 2 at the lagre fields... that takes at least 10,000 lbs to destroy. make it's size about the area of 3 current bomber hangars in a row. that way the jabo-suicide typh tards couldn't close a field in 2 minutes.
another thing. fuel could be brought to the "front" quicker than alot of things... it was very important to have. why not make fuel bunkers stay down only 5 minutes or something. either that or multiply by 4 the number of fuel depots there are at a field.
oh well my 2¢
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here's an idea I've adobted. Don't even bother with the land grabbing. Let the MAW squads play that game. There's plenty of Laz types that wanna furball and It's really easy to find those fights (even Trinty A30 was buzzing for 3 days straight). What I've been doing lately is taking the 190A5, get to 15k and try to pick off as many on the "congo line" as possible. It's a challege to lannd those kills in that plane when 50% of your targets are LA7's. I'm stll finding new ways to play in AH so I don't lose interest. Only time I log is when the pizza map is up.
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My Opinion -
The level of A2A competency in the MA has dropped substantially.
If you know you can't kill a guy in the air with BFM and ACM, but still want to play a role in the MA, you pork fuel, pork ordinance, pork hangars, etc. Strat is your reason for playing.
Nothing in this game compares to the sweaty palm 1v1, 1v2, but alot of folks woud much rather completely avoid a fight.
No fights are boring.
F.
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Nothing in this game compares to the sweaty palm 1v1, 1v2, but alot of folks woud much rather completely avoid a fight.
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Planes blow up so damned easily there is no fight once the advantage has been lost (which frequently means whoever has the alt at first contact) I remember in WBs going 1 vrs 1 numerous times gaining the advantage only to have the tide turn, then again and then often, again. Fights lasting several minutes were the norm. Here its, wham bam thank you mam. Still fun in its own way but requires very very carefull (aka smart) playing if you really dont like letting some dorkchorkler take your virtual hide and blow you on the first damned pass.
Dont even get me going about blasting three B-17 FLYING FORTRESSES to SMITHEREENS in one spineless pass in a Spitfire.
Yeah...this game has never been too close to perfect to begin with. Just throw in 300 tardinators and looky see.
Eat, me
:D
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Hazed, sit in a flak, shoot ponies out of the sky that are 2.0K above you and read with glee the amazement in your victims text.
There are so many different things to do in this game, I'm still having a blast. Just for fun I furballed in an A20 yesterday. There's lots of things to do. :)
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1.) Get vulched because you didnt see the red bar in the sector.
DOH ... better SA from the tower will prevent this problem very easily.
2.) Fly 20 minutes to your desination at 15-20K feet, only to have 8-9 La7/Nik/Spit's drop down on you from 30K.
Just a tad overstated ... I NEVER see La-7s or N1Ks at 30,000 ft. La-7s won't go there because the SUCK above 15,000, so sighting 8-9 at that altitude is way over-exagerated.
3.) Fly 20 minutes to desination, find no one. Fly 20 minutes home.
Flying to a sector with no dar-bar will result in finding no one home to play with.
I really miss the small, 2v2, 4v4 engagements that were common only a year ago. Now it seems if you see one con, there are always at least 10 around him. The face shooting and ramming whines used to be great for a laugh... but does anyone use ACM anymore? It seems to me that 99% of the fights Im engaged in proceed as follows:
Visual sighting, 100% throttle, head to head merge, I drop underneath con's nose to avoid tracer fire, proceed to counter his first move... a flat turn... ok, simple right? Sure - high yo-yo... Nope... 5 more La7's coming... you need to break off cause you dont want to be caught on the upswing of the turn... but of course you cant disengage and break off because you cant outrun them. So you turn... nope... cant do that either, becuase there's an N1k back there too and he'll eat you. So what are you left with? No options. You franticly enter the world of dweebdom... "There is no way I can survive this engagement intact, so I will take as many of them with me as I can."
Here ... let me rephrase that for you from my standpoint ...
Visual sighting, 100% throttle, head to head merge, I drop underneath con's nose to avoid tracer fire, proceed to counter his first move... a flat turn... ok, simple right? Sure - high yo-yo... Nope... 5 more 109s/190s coming... you need to break off cause you dont want to be caught on the upswing of the turn... but of course you cant disengage and break off because you cant outrun them. So you turn... nope... cant do that either, becuase there's an P-51 back there too and he'll eat you. So what are you left with? No options. You franticly enter the world of dweebdom... "There is no way I can survive this engagement intact, so I will take as many of them with me as I can.
Most of these statements/observations are a thinly veiled whine about La-7s and N1ks and not the real problem at hand.
I have to agree that most don't want to really fight anymore, and just when I am starting to get the hang of AtoA combat.
Most of my merges are first trying to avoid the always expected HO at the merge. If HO, then you can expect 9 out of 10 times you will kill the bastage cause they have no AtoA skill. If no HO, then most of the time you can expect a pretty good fight.
Missions as of late (which I usally enjoy) have been boring to say the least. If the mission is huge, you are lucky if you get to fight one, maybe 2 guys, and to get in on the vulchfest is worse than a deli line when smoked-ham is selling for 50 cents a pound.
Laz still has the best idea going, and that is to place an early war Air-to-Air area inside the MA map. This would provide another level of choice that could only make things better.
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Originally posted by Saurdaukar
I have come to the conclusion that for the past 5-6 months, there are FOUR possibilites when you take off:
1.) Get vulched because you didnt see the red bar in the sector.
2.) Fly 20 minutes to your desination at 15-20K feet, only to have 8-9 La7/Nik/Spit's drop down on you from 30K.
3.) Fly 20 minutes to desination, find no one. Fly 20 minutes home.
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4.)Take off, go AFK, come back 10 minutes later to see tracers flying by and the helpless feeling when your tail cracks off. :mad:
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Originally posted by Saurdaukar
Good post. Im not much of a buffer, so I cant relate there... but as a pretty much dedicated fighter junky, I have come to the conclusion that for the past 5-6 months, there are three possibilites when you take off:
1.) Get vulched because you didnt see the red bar in the sector.
2.) Fly 20 minutes to your desination at 15-20K feet, only to have 8-9 La7/Nik/Spit's drop down on you from 30K.
3.) Fly 20 minutes to desination, find no one. Fly 20 minutes home.
I really miss the small, 2v2, 4v4 engagements that were common only a year ago. Now it seems if you see one con, there are always at least 10 around him. The face shooting and ramming whines used to be great for a laugh... but does anyone use ACM anymore? It seems to me that 99% of the fights Im engaged in proceed as follows:
Visual sighting, 100% throttle, head to head merge, I drop underneath con's nose to avoid tracer fire, proceed to counter his first move... a flat turn... ok, simple right? Sure - high yo-yo... Nope... 5 more La7's coming... you need to break off cause you dont want to be caught on the upswing of the turn... but of course you cant disengage and break off because you cant outrun them. So you turn... nope... cant do that either, becuase there's an N1k back there too and he'll eat you. So what are you left with? No options. You franticly enter the world of dweebdom... "There is no way I can survive this engagement intact, so I will take as many of them with me as I can." :(
Yep happens to me every night I log on.
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Lots of good points. Sums up how I see things at the moment. What freaks me out beyond all compare is when you finally find a 1 v 1 away from the furball only to have them run. Seems to me this is getting more common plus more pronounced - I frequently have planes turn around before icon range even if they're co-alt.
It's not the game at fault, it just seems the world and his dog has one eye on his airspeed and the other on the scoreboard. Would be interesting to see what would happen if scoring was disabled for a week.
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Hazed,
I’ve read your initial post a couple of times. It seems that the AH community is diversifying to some considerable extent. There are two broad groups. The furballers, and the strat players. And it seems that the two do not make good bedfellows. From your text I can tell that you fly strat missions, but not exclusively. And I can relate to all the difficulties you cited in your post. The problem is to garner any sort of support and/or understanding of the problems from the community. Half of them (the furball half – the exact proportion will be known when AH2 is released) have not the slightest interest in strat, except to say that they won’t like it if you were to bomb their fighter hangars because that “limits their choices” as to which airfields they can fly from... which is sort of the whole point of the exercise, but let’s move on...
It should be clear to anyone reading this BBS that many, many people are brassed off with AH gameplay as it stands today. In fact within the past two weeks, the quit posts have been pouring in, and that is not good news. People are sick to death of the line-‘em-up-knock-‘em-down-turkey-shoot-farce that MA gameplay has become. How did we get to where we are now?
I come from WB, developed originally by the same guys who developed AH – Hitech and Pyro. The subscription fees were high by today’s standards - $2/hour. And it really mounted up. I’ve had many 3-digit monthly bills, and some guys expenditure on WB equated to their monthly car payments! The silver lining of this cloud was that we had mostly serious players – guys who really understood ACM, and taught me a lot, and guys with an extensive interest in WW2 aircraft and of course WW2 itself. The reasons were simple. Anyone prepared to make that sort of financial outlay was dedicated to flightsimdom. Sure, there were some suicide dweebs/HO wallies, but they didn’t stay long after they got their first bill, and there was usually a challenge to be found. We didn’t get The Kidz in there, as they simply would not countenance the $2 hourly fee. The numbers in WB were never as high as I have seen in AH this past 18 months. But it didn’t matter. The hourly fee took care of that.
Then came AH, which has always been flat rate. Suddenly the doors are opened to a whole new player base. $1 a day, now reduced to about 50¢ per day – big difference from $2 per hour – but that left a big problem. No more megabuck account holders. How to make up the shortfall? More accounts. The game had to be made attractive to a wider audience, and the flat rate went a long way towards achieving that. And along came The Kidz – in droves. Now the sad thing about The Kidz is that many of them have no interest in WW2, no interest in planes, no interest in ACM, and certainly no interest in strat. They just want the simple camera functions – point and shoot, and hopefully see something blow up. Many seem not to care if they get shot down. No interest in analysing what happened – and why should they care? A new plane is just a mouse click away. Aerial Quake, indeed. Of course, The Kidz have no skills, and therefore have special needs in the form of easy-to-fly wonderplanes. These needs are met by an inexhaustible fleet of N1Ks and LA7s. Ask yourself this: When was the last time you encountered a N1K when he did not turn towards you in an attempt to force the HO? When was the last time you saw one which made an effort at ACM?
So now the strat players/buff drivers are disgruntled – too many opportunist cherry pickers, especially on the children’s maps, with the 163 a real pain for buff drivers. A situation exacerbated by the bardar facility. That and the Mission Editor which, in the past, has been abused as a gangbang generator, combine to pork every honest attempt at a stealth capture mission. The enemy is simply lying in wait, every time. And the only way to get the job done is to use numerical strength. Skill goes out of the window, and the only strat – as Lazs has observed – becomes the numbers involved in the ensuing numerical supremacy smashdown.
What to do? Well I find Lazs’s 50,000’ mountain range idea interesting, but we have an anomaly here. Lazs does not believe in multiple arenas. But if that 50,000’ mountain range really is impermeable from both sides, then what’s the difference between that set up, and having two separate arenas? The only time I saw an arena divided in that way was a few years ago in WB – the Generations concept. Damn good idea, in which the map was divided into sections offering different types of plane – IJN, LW, RAF, USN etc. But no impermeable wall, so things were ruined by guys who would fly from the other side of the map in 109s and 190s to beat up zekes...
Hazed is right, and I believe the trend has been to cater increasingly to the guys who want an instant kill fix, and guys who want to see how many instant kill fixes they can get each hour. The more the game moves in that direction, the less appealing it will be to strat players. But it’s not just the strat players that have been affected by the rapid insurgence of the latest arena menace, the Newbie Steamroller - A particular problem on the smaller, children’s maps – and one of the reasons I prefer Pizza and Trinity, but not the only reason – there are others!
In recent discussions about the impact of the Trinity map on arena gameplay, I have come away convinced that the interests of the furballers and the interest of the strat players are mutually exclusive. My question is, why don’t the furballers move to the DA, or some other strat free arena? It makes no sense for the furballers (and the newbie steamrollers) to occupy a strat based arena when they have no interest in strat. It makes even less sense when, as a result of no arena separation, the furballers with no interest in strat make demands for changes – to strat!
The MA rather resembles the American Wild West of the 1800s – no rules, no structure, a free for all melee of which many, many people have grown tired, with the account cancellations rolling in. Hazed said: ”This all for yourself attitude is NOTHINg like the way the war was fought. They emphasised TEAMPLAY and sound tactics not gunho ramming and suicide attacks 24/7. What i see of late is the people who are AVID aircraft and WW2 fans and are often well versed in ACM and well read on the history of the conflict being forced to fly in a way which CANNOT sustain adult interest for very long.AH seems to be changing into a fast paced checkers game where learning the intricasies of the world of wartime aviation is ignored in favour of becoming a fast shootem up player.I love it , furballing etc IS FUN. BUT it cannot sustain longterm interest.
Indeed, indeed. And the furballers (and maybe even the newbie steam rollers) will tell you that they “don’t care about YOUR war”. The arena has been designed with “freedom” and “more choices”. But more choice for Newbie Steamroller is going to mean less choice for anyone else. Hence the pissing and moaning about the impact of the suicide fuel porkers, amongst other furballer complaints.
When will people begin to realise that it’s because of the “freedom”, and because of “unlimited choices” that MA gameplay has become the frustrating bore that many people find it to be today, with conga lines and aerial vulching/gangbangery, and Newbie Steamroller ripping us apart. Even guys like Apache now see the need for an RPS. “No! No! No!”, I hear you cry. “We want to fly what we want, when we want. We don’t want YOUR war.” OK, it’s not just YOU who gets unlimited choices. Doofus-Dweebius gets the same choices, and spoils it for everyone. You want freedom, more choices? Fine, DD and NS get them too. You like conga lines, gangbangs, suicide TYPH missions against your bases, suicide LANC missions at 300’ to your CV? Good. Because that’s what you are going to get, until some semblance of order is created. Anyway, this whole debate will all be buggery-doo when AH2 appears. Any cosmetic quick-fixes are going to be tantamount to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Most of the guys I’ve asked are looking forward to the mission concept, with only a few dissenters. Could be that the mission arena gets a much better attendance, in which case the furballers will be disappointed. Next thing you know they’ll come cap in hand to the mission arena, but it won’t be long before these non-strat guys are asking for changes to the strat. Kind of like what we have right now – lol. ”Imagine a game where the developer provided the toys and all the kids in the sandbox were free to make their own choices about what constituted "fun". For some of us, that'd be heaven. For others, freedom of choice like that is scary or disappointing or "unfair" or something a nanny should do for them.”
Yeah, right. Look where that’s landed us.
:rolleyes:
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LOL!
They just won't play your way, will they Generalissimo?
Tears fill my heart for your plight! :D
I'm thinking we're about to enter another "nirvana" era..... The Generalissimo's of "real war" will all be in the AH2 Mission Arena and the great unwashed "boys just wanna have fun" crowd will get to reclaim the MA; it may well be as it was in the glory days of beta. I can hope.
But I have the feeling the AH 2 Mission Arena will meet with the same underwhelming success that the CT did after a few got their way with that. It's running less than 10% of the average nightly MA attendance now, correct? Usually in the 5% range. (Don't get me wrong. I'm glad CT guys have their own little place. I think the "strat" guys deserve one too! Long live the AH 2 Mission Arena!)
If we can get HT to put the strat back to the early day levels, the MA could be great again.
Because rudimentary strat is all you need; IMO the beta and immediate post-beta era provided the most fun in the history of AH to date. (Maybe we could make everything uncapturable.. then all there'd be to do would be FIGHT!) When you think about it, it was when the "strat" got more and more complex is when the huge missions started and the small fights decreased. Not a coincidence, IMO.
And, after all, the uncounted thousands.. (or is it millions?) of "real war" players won't ever want to set foot in the unruly, strat-ignoring, MA again will they?
Cod bless yas! Enjoy yerselfs! If there's anything I can do to speed yas along, please don't hesitate to ask.
And now.. talks amongst yourselves. I'm leaving at 0dark30 to bring a newly rebuilt Fairchild PT-19 from Arizona to Nebraska. Open cockpit, low level, duckin' phone wires all the way. :D
You guys go ahead an argue some more 'bout strat. I'm going to go have so major fun!
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Toad you live in AZ?
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Toad has a point.
I flew AW from 1985 to 99. Strat was minimal so people improvised and had a load of fun. In the AW2 beta we were restricted to 1940 era fighters and bombers for 2 weeks. We had some nonstop giant furballs between Spit1's and Emil's while B25's and C47's worked their tails off to take fields. That was a fun 2 weeks. People whined for later war uber planes, but they kept coming back every day for more low tech mayhem.
AW3 started ruining it...lotsa uber planes, alt monkeys, picker-choosers and gang bang trains on fields. It got fun again for awhile when they brought back the original small Europe map. Distances were short and we got back to great low alt furballs between short distance fields. -anyone from AW remeber the Sha to Gra field wars?-
Buff pilots have always had it bad, newbees want shelter in numbers, and in a gunfight it's human nature to bring an MDuce instead of a flintlock.
I know I'm new to AH:) but remove all of the graphics and its not too different from AW. I noticed a bunch of AW old hands here.:D
I just joined so I'm getting my wings back into shape. I get my tail blown off alot:p but so what, I'm using an LA7 to get oriented..dweeb newbiee syndrome. It flys like a little stang on steroids, saves whats left of my ancient dignity;) and gives me something to laugh about after I put a drill bit through my hand remodeling my kitchen this week.:eek:
And by the way I want to thank all of you for being a delightful community to fly with. I hope all of you get many oportunities to to blow my keister out of the the freindly sky's of AH. :D
-bustr-
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Good points in your intitial post Toad.
We got what we asked for but its hard in shuch a complex system to forsee all the consequences.
I dont think going back to what we had is the answer though. Pyro can keep watching what happens. Play the game so that he sees what we see. and tune things a little.
still find some great one on ones. My squad can still take down a stirng of 6 fields if we get on a roll. But all too often someone will just summon a cloud of dweebs in typhoons and wreck what ever is going on...
Hard to think of an alternative. Maybe some kind of logistical limitation...but most of us would hate that..
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I also get bored. Sometimes I log on....sit in the tower.....surmise where I want to go in what......then say nawwwwwwww and log.
I also miss the nice little fights 4 on 4 while intercepting a squad fighter sweep.........or being intercepted trying to with 4 or 5 squadies capture a base far from the maddening crowd. One on ones, two on twos, etc are rare. Everyone now looks for the so called front.....and doesn't want to create another front to fight in.
The huge red dar bar draws a crowd. And when you get to the fight it looks like a bazillion flies hovering over a garbage dump.
Couple weeks ago Wilbuz, Apar and myself went to the DA not to duel and pound chests...but just to fly against one another. It was fun.....and not one 20K (insert N1K, Spit, La7,or pony) dove in to break up the fun. However one dweeb came in, saw where we were , got an ostwind and proceded to shoot us down when we took off.
Guess, just when you think it's safe to enter the water......there's another shark waiting for lunch.
Best thing I could think of to lessen the million man march to a base for capture is......
1) Harden the hell out of the city.....add a couple more acks.
Even make the city larger. Make the acks more lethal.
Right now in two passes on the city all 3 ack can be taken
down easily. One good 110 Pilot with Rkts and 2X500 lbs
bombs can take out 80% of the city in short order and survive
easily. One can imagine what 20 typhoon pilots with
suicidal tendancies can accomplish. Suicide fuel porkers
are another pain the the prettythang.
2.) Spawn points.....for gvs. Eliminate them. Yup I said eliminate
them. If ya want realism, make them travel the distance
to their target, as the real ones did. I see no spawn points
for aircraft do you? This also may stimulate getting large
columns of gvs together for an attack. That's a mission.
Tank area in Trinity is good idea for those who like them.
But if used against enemy bases then make them drive the
distance needed to get to their objective. Virtual reality...
flight time.....and travel time should be accurate imho. I
don't recall Patton spawning just outside Bastogne do you?
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Hazed, a few months ago I felt much the same way you do now. I was getting tired of the same situations you describe. But think about this. If you're getting ganged by 4-5 cons every time, its because they are using team tactics and you aren't. While I find them boring to take part in, the steamroller raids are a form of team tactics. The fact is you just can't do much by yourself. Now if you get a few quality squaddies with you things start to get fun again. If you stick together and use comms you can take on a superior #s and have a good fight, maybe even win.
The past few weeks I've made it a point to always stick with the squad, and I've been having more fun than ever. Lately it seems when we get together more often than not everything just clicks and we have a great time. And for the Assassins a good turnout is 5-6 guys, so its not like we go around gangbanging everything.
I don't buy that we need to separate the furballers from the strat types. The problem is the arena gameplay tends to put them at odds. The way things are now, the best way to capture fields isn't to defeat the enemy, but rather to keep him from making it to the fight. What I mean is you kill the FHs or fuel so fighters can't or wont bother to fight, and kill the VH to get rid of GVs. No enemy around=you win. Obviously furballers are gonna get angry when the strat guys' mission is to keep them from fighting.
A better system would have both types of play compliment each other. Where base capture occurs through some mechanism of winning the furball, and strat objectives have the effect of bettering the furballers' chances in the fight. By the latter I mean bombing fuel refineries slightly reduces power of enemy engines, aircraft factories effect airframe drag/durability, things like that. The effects just can't be so severe that the other side decides its not worth it to fight.
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The early WB strat was fine. You simply had to destroy all targets on the field to close it - no-one could take off from it. Then land at the field. But that got a bit silly because a single B17 could capture a field. So then they introduced the ju52 with troops - just like our own C47 Goon, but later ju52 was enabled at the CVs. The hardest targets were the radar and hut/mast. I used to use an F6F with 2x1000, hit the radar so they could no longer see me/us, then get that nasty 40mm ack. Another jabo could take the hangar and fuel, remaining acks, and my last 1000#, places neatly between the hut and mast would destroy both targets. Someone else could bring the ju52. The watchword was stealth. If the enemy's city or port was destroyed, target rebuild times would be increased significantly. Everyone understood the strat.
Of course, it's possible to have too much strat - IMO WB went down that road. Here in AH, I doubt whether more than 5% of the players have a full understanding of the strat, and I'm one of the ones who does not. All this zone base stuff, radar factories in the middle of the countryside as well as radar on the field, plus being able to switch off radar by bombing HQ. Way too complicated, especially during times when there are only around 100 players on.
But whether the strat is intense or minimal does not alter my particular motivation for flying, which is with territory capture in mind, with some great fights along the way, and not the manufactured fights you see by putting fields too close together. Hazed was definitely right about that - it won't hold the long term interest. I flew like that in my first 3 months of flightsimdom - even flew WB as a Purp alongside Lazs. It was fun, but then I kept wondering why we couldn't take off from our front line field, and had to take of from the next one back, and then the one behind that, until we had no fields left and the war was won by the opposition!They just won't play your way, will they Generalissimo?
We won't know for sure until AH2 comes out. I don't even know, so I asked the community:
The community speaks. (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66960)
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The whole downfall of the MA is that people simply do whatever they want. You can't fault someone for wanting to have fun however they see fit (right toad), but everyone in this thread is doing it. The server, without people, would be idle... nothing happening. The people playing the game make it happen.
Right now, a large number of people playing the game have moved into such extreme behavior that the game is becoming gamey. Whether you believe it should simulate war, or just simulate dogfighting, it has become extremely gamey.
Enter the scoring competition... and gamey is taken to the extreme. Now, even the good pilots run from fights unless they have 10 squadies with them. Its sad to see.
Personally, I welcome the mission arena. It reduces the ability of the pilots to game the game. Of course... it slows down the game too. That's something I'm willing to live with. Those that don't want to can still enjoy the "classic" AH. And, who knows, your accusations that nobody will fly in the mission arena might be true. My money says they won't be nearly as accurate as some are thinking.
Anyways... just pointing out that the game does not cause anything to happen. The players do. The new players are not the only ones driving the current behavior in the MA. There are plenty of vets there to show them the way.
Ah... to sum it all up...
Wake me when AH2 gets here.
MiniD
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I wish others would value deaths more, I mean less HOs, less vulched=less vulching, chutes get open in time so you dont die.
Lately Ive been getting bored so I would up from the hangar,fire my engines up and taxi to ,runway take off ,do a go around and get some alt then do a missoin I planed for myself, like killing troops at a base or just fly a fighter sweep to a sector and back. Alot of times I will find 10-20 lower guys and just hover above them and if they climb up i go down and kill them but try to do nothing that will indanger my life and have an escape route. Then fly home and park my pretty P38 in hangar and kill the engines. and do a post flight check on the plane hehe. I found this to be quite fun and my flights are ALOT longer requiring drop tanks. Sometimes my misson for myself require me to head to certain sector and back but find no action lol. Even when that happens I have fun flying the P38 and means Ill be landing and returning to my family.
Then at times Ill get into the game and try upping from vulched feilds trying to save it. Usally do this when it was my base of operations.
Like others been saying Sometimes Ill play AH as a simulation and sometimes Il play it as a GAME
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Yes, AH is at an awkward stage right now. We have pieces of HTC's strategy all glued together and some pieces don't fit. No surprise there ... it's complex brew they're cooking.
The stat model is lacking and a number of guys simply aren't interested in strat right now. It's too freaking frustrating.
Since HTC has answered our plea about terrain changes (see news this bbs,) we will no longer be stuck with one terrain for weeks. Further, we will get to enjoy a favorite terrain for a week, regardless of how frequently it is reset during the week.
Since we are going to have the same terrain for a week, I suggest we quit worrying about who's going to win the war and concentrate on having fun.
My favorite terrain is SFMA closely followed by Trinity. And yet, after 3 weeks of Trinity, I would become frantic in our attempts to reset it. Too much of a good thing isn't good!
We can all quit flying missions with massive numbers of planes. They are pointless now. Instead, we can invest our time in finding fun.
curly
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beetle we have different memories of "the good ol days" I had said 3 digit bills in both dos AW and dos WB and then regular WB... the people in those 2 buck an hour arena weren't so much interested in building battling as.... battling.. the strat was minimal... you landed at a field to capture it was one... the guys looked for good fites because they were paying their 2 bucks an hour to be bored.
What has happened is that there are a lot of new guys and a lot of new "strat" and "rewards" for acting timidly.. the strat and the reward system "perks", work toward making people timid... add to the fact that you have so many new guys and that it is 100 times harder to defeat an opponent in a somewhat fair fite than to suicide into a building...
There are two types of players now... those who battle other players and those who battle buildings.
lazs
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Hazed:
I'm gonna write another reply in response to other replies :)
IMO, I don't think boredom sets in due to sheer numbers of FNGz or, the low cost of being able to take part in this addiction, or even any one map.
Again, I think it has more to do with the attitudes of some in the arena. One guy responded that he got tired of the "line em up..."approach. yeah, this happens a lot, and killshooter remains a point of concern to many who are not dweeb enough or discourteous to fly in front of you when you are saddled up. We have newbies and old hands and intermediates in the same arena, and that makes it hard for the older hands who have solidified the kind of experience (call it enjoyment) they want to have. And there are those who fly to a fight only to get ganged by 5 or 6 (and that aint because the 5 or 6 are better team players; they are dweebs falling over themselves for a kill), and who get frustrated by the whole thing.
This game and community has different levels of participants, and each (except the lowest group; the newbies) has its own ideas of what the best type of gameplay is, and it usually isn't quite right:)
I flew AW for years (not WBz) and became bored from time to time, it wasn't anyone's fault, it was me and my mood at the time; so I took some time off. When I see posts by some who state for all to see that they are quitting, I wonder about that.
Why not simply leave? Why spend the time and energy posting a long message to strangers about why you are quitting? Its a personal choice, just leave :)
I have to say, if this game were so totally screwed, there wouldn't be 3 to 400 people per night playing it. I remember seeing the demise of a sim once in AW, and it is apparent when a game is dying; this game isn't. And its problems for some (thankfully) don't have much to do with the quality of the game, just the quality of the gameplay which is directly attributable to the players.
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Toad, I disagree with you that the change in mentality has come from the changes in base capture and the bomber changes.
I believe it comes directly from the fact that 250+ in the MA used to be a HUGE deal for Aces High and now we regularly have 450+ in the MA on any given night (USA nights), and sometimes 500+ here and there.
Small attacks could work on a field when there were just 80 pilots a side. Even when they switched to towns, small squads could still take a base as the towns go down pretty easily to a couple of Typhoons or P-47s (or if you wanna spend a little perkies, the CHog!) What happened was when you tried to take a base and 20+ defenders upped to stop you. The only way to take a base now is to outnumber the defenders. Even if you pork the hangars pretty quickly, a lot of defenders are in the air. It only takes one of them to ruin your C47's, LVT2 or M3's day.
Changing the strat back to where it used to be won't change anything. Steamrollers would still be the way to go, because once a base starts flashing, the hornet's nest will get stirred up and wipe out any small strike force (unless you can NOE a small field and pork the hangars before they up. Impossible to do on a large field with a small force.)
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hazed...
I just found a whole new world at 6am (PHX Time). Last few days I've logged on for 1 hop before work. Had a blast...not really the old 1 vs 1 from the "old days" (AW 94-99 in my case) or the beta days here...but very good. I tend to fly where I'm out numbered a bit (suicidal tendencies I guess :) )...anyway had some nice 1 vs 2-3 fights. Landed a 7 kill yesterday, had a couple of 4-5 kill hops before I bit the dust...today was only a couple before I got nailed ...but all in all alot of fun. Especially considering I was like 4 kills in 20+ hops in "primetime". Bout 1/2 were GV vulches on takeoff rest being part of "remember the alamo" type base defense.
Biggest problem is I'm becoming what I hate...an la-7 dweeb. Flyin low and outnumbered it's really the best ride going...whats funny is it will dance with almost anything 1 vs 1. It's a great plane if flown right.
Anyway, thinking of only flying "off peak" from now on.
I've been totally disapointed with the Ct...mostly bunch of base grabbers or mini gangbangers...at least my last few hops.
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Ya but Mia, can ya kill mustangs? I mean a mustang is the be all end all of sim planes.
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OMG, you all must really be bored. You have more time to write than I have to read.
Anyway, I think it's not the game, it's the players.
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S!
CT have been now more than year more intresting to me than MA.
MA have a The Numbers and that maybe is it. When I start AH, there was about 60-90 pilots in MA and we had lots of fun.
Its some times too hextic in MA now days (IMHO).
Lets be positive and wait "Two weeks" to see what kind new toy HTC could offer AH-simmers :)
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Originally posted by Steve
Ya but Mia, can ya kill mustangs? I mean a mustang is the be all end all of sim planes.
Nope only mustangs I can kill are one that will fight. usally I get on there 6 and they use there speed to run, if they get stupid and turnfight its all over for them
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do they go that high??
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This whole argument kinda makes ya wish BF1942 had more planes and could fit 500 players in a single arena at a time don't it?
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Originally posted by lazs2
There are two types of players now... those who battle other players and those who battle buildings.
lazs
That's an over simplification. You're wrong.
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Originally posted by Steve
do they go that high??
LOL Steve you perfering me to an alt monkey? Im not that bad only get real high if alot of enemy
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Originally posted by Toad
LOL!
They just won't play your way, will they Generalissimo?
If you mean there are no other guys flying the field capture business, you're wrong too. Check my stats for the current tour. I have made two captures - one by Goon, the other by M3. I am ranked at about #500 on each count...
...which means, I am led to believe, that there are about 500 guys who have done more captures than me. And since a Goon cannot level town buildings, it follows that other guys did that. Anyone in the capture business knows (though I realise that excludes you, hence this explanation) that for capture to be possible, there needs to be about 8 guys involved - base capping, VH duffing, town levelling guys. So for those 500 Goon/M3 drivers, there would have been 4000 cappers/building battlers - the two roles overlap. Of course, some of those 4000 would be the same guys as on previous capture missions, but the real total is still around 2000 at least.
Which kind of blows your theory. :D
Anyway, Bufo - I'm outta here for the next week. Going hiking in the Yorkshire Dales - Dowding's county. :)
So Toodlus-Pippus, and don't let the bed bugs bite. :D
See ya on the 17th.
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thnx for replies guys.
To add a little to my idea of a possible change in the way the strat is handled I had a thought today about how to change the way the strat affects areas.
I got to thinking about how games like Risk work and i suddenly thought of how this could be applied to our game.
The idea is to have zones where you have a capital city,local factories to that city, local large bases close to city and as you get further away you have smaller bases where defences steadily get weaker.On a single map you place FIVE capitals so that at any one time one country has the extra city and therefore better resources.
The idea here is to make it possible for any country to own JUST one capital zone in order to be able to wage a decent war.
If you capture 2 or more capitals this rewards your country (perhaps more aircraft models available or better fuel supplies or even new weapons like V2 Rocket bombs or whatever )
The capitals would require total destruction in order to be open to attack and capture.This would mean in order to capture the capitals you literally have to use bombers to do it.However the much smaller and less defended bases and small towns further out from the capitals are easily taken and so change hands more often.This will hopefully mean the quick fix guys fight around the capitals and can essentially ignore the big picture war but at the same time they can help(by keeping enemy forces busy) the strat types who are trying to close down industries and take the capitals
Industry at these capitals is of utmost importance and is HEAVILY defended by AAA .It should require a large number of bombs to damage but AT THE SAME TIME once its hit it STAYS hit a long time. These factories should be placed in areas where they are easier to defend than to attack, ie on high mountainsides/hills or in valleys where to approach them you are FORCED to fly over many bases and AAA.
This is how a capital capture will work.
First you must capture a high percentage of bases in the capital city zone.(remeber there would be many zones on each large map)
You now need to subdue the population by destroying the capital in order to take it BUT the local factories running at full speed will resupply damaged city areas VERY quickly.Basically this will result in damage done by bombers to the capital quickly being repawned because the industries are running full speed.
SO as attacker You then will need to damage local industry in order to slow considerably the resupply of the capital.Now this should be a hard and dangerous job (due to static AA defence let alone enemy pilots)
BUT and this is the big but, ONCE you have hit these factories you will have a LONG time(hours even) to make further missions and finnish the job rather than the present way it is (where by the time you land everything you did manage to bomb has respawned.) The idea is to make the destruction of industry a highly difficult task but one that has a great deal of reward in that when you damage it it takes a damn long time to repair and leaves local enemy cities and bases vulnerable to capture.
Once Local Factories are all destroyed or are 75% or more damaged this causes resupply to SLOW or even STOP to the capital (and local bases).
(50% of your capitals factories destroyed? well guess what your whole surrounding bases/cities get resupplied 50% slower!!)
The point is to make sure there is a EFFECT felt by loss of production/resupply.
Now the Capital city is not resupplied at full speed bombing of the city causes a much more perminant affect to the respawning of buildings.
Now as the attacker you have a capital which , when you bomb buildings, they no longer respawn in 5 mins but instead stay down fo much much longer.You now have to destroy 80% or more of the capital and once that is done you can send in the troops.
The result i would hope for is this...
All maps can now be NON symetrical. Each capital would in effect be like a little self contained country and so surroundings wont have to be the same at each capital.
If you are not into strat play there should in theory be Plenty of small base captures and fights in the areas furthest from and between the capitals.Allowing people to fight AROUND the capitals freely even take all the bases surrounding the capital but unable to capture the capital itself and its larger local bases totally, plus the large capital bases wil be hard/impossible to close for long.(fuel/ammo/hangers wont stay down long unless factories are also leveled.)
If you ARE into strat then as a bomber you can try for these industrial targets but to go in alone would basically result in an almost garenteed failed run.If you send in the big bomber missions you can drop on those factories and EVEN IF you only cause 10% damage it wont be a total failure because you can set up ANOTHER attack to ADD to your first missions damage.It might take 5 or 6 major assaults to knock out that factory enough but not even a small drop is worthless.
Once the strat guys have damaged the factories enough suddenly a capital is a possible prize. Then the emphasis of all players will be the big push for the big prize :)
The whole thing should be a struggle to control the MAJORITY of capitals.
Countries with the most will receive bonuses to resupply or special weapons.(or if prefered the country with only 1 capital that is almost down receive a 'desperate' bonus and they receive the vengance weapons)
Maybe a country with 1 capital resupplies at 100% , with 2 capitals it ups to 120%(or gains 20% more AA empacements) , 3 = 140%(or 40% more AA emplacements) (obviously depending on the state of their factories)
do you see what i mean? you end up with 2 differently paced capture games.
the small towns and bases remain similar to what we have now but a NEW much slower progressing game of CAPITAL city captures progresses in the background.
It opens the possiblility of using REAL maps like europe or mediteranean or asia because basically you have a war for each 'capital zone' and the loss of one capital DOES NOT affect your ability to use another to wage war from (if you have more than one capital of course ;)).zones can be all sorts of sizes too.we could even have capitals which are easy to hold onto but have less industry and then very tricky to hold capitals that have massive industry areas (perhaps at lower alts too).The more industry at the capital the harder it is to slow it down enough to capturel because they require greater amounts of bombing.We could really have some wildly different areas whilst still not unballancing the whole arena. Holding each zone would in effect be a seperate battle and so holding the better territory at one capital doesnt mean its any easier to take the next capital. Also even a capital that is undefended is quite capable of surviving on ai AA defence alone(unless attack is determined) but the surrounding area and small bases/towns can be overun as normal.
if you dont like the loss of fuel at bases meaning 25% limits to fuel loads it merely means you move to the areas between capitals where there are more bases and youre closer to other enemy bases. Capture of these is still usefull but it doesnt really affect the big war.If you dont care about the big picture you can fight at these bases all day long furballing away! but if you want to win the 'War' you concentrate on the capitals
like it?
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>>OMG, you all must really be bored. You have more time to write than I have to read.
Anyway, I think it's not the game, it's the players.<<
Thats a major assumption on your part ccvi but, at least we agree on one thing...it's the players and not the game
;)
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>>what do you think?<<
Well, it's different Hazed :) Yet, with this bunch, yourself included, how long would it take for "us" to get bored with this method as well after a while?
One thing I think would work with any new applications to the game is this:
That HTC would present a new product (or version) and place it in open beta for an extended period of time, to guage it's affects on the players. I mean, the HTC people have seemed to bend over backwards for us most times, and after a while the BBs becomes full of whines, and complaints about the gameplay. Maybe put something out there, and get some feedback from all of us over a limited period of time to determine if there is gonna be some longterm satisfaction with it.
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Originally posted by Don
>>what do you think?<<
Well, it's different Hazed :) Yet, with this bunch, yourself included, how long would it take for "us" to get bored with this method as well after a while?
One thing I think would work with any new applications to the game is this:
That HTC would present a new product (or version) and place it in open beta for an extended period of time, to guage it's affects on the players. I mean, the HTC people have seemed to bend over backwards for us most times, and after a while the BBs becomes full of whines, and complaints about the gameplay. Maybe put something out there, and get some feedback from all of us over a limited period of time to determine if there is gonna be some longterm satisfaction with it.
yeah i guess you could be right but the point of this set up would be to create an arena where both the strat minded and the fuball minded have a part to play. The present set up Although as has been said it was asked for it was never really done right.
Yes HTC added more strat and made the factories more dense for easier bombing but they never really made the effect of bombing factories a worthwhile endeavor.For the strat minded player there is no resource war to affect. Especially on larger maps where there are more than one factory of each type, the bombing and even complete levelling of one factory doesnt really do anything.There isnt even a LOCAL reward, you have to kill all the factories of each type (ie fuel) to get a result, and even then there really isnt a visible result or even much of a detrimental effect on the enemies ability to fight.This is why no one bothers to even try.
With capitals you have a target which is too difficult to capture UNLESS you bomb large areas and factories but with many surrounding small bases you still have the ability to fly and fight without caring too much about the capital wars. The quick fix player will always find a base with all its fuel on the borders of the 'zones' because there will be many closely packed together.The strategy minded player will have to capture and hold a good few bases inside the capital zone in order to be able to launch the bigger raids needed to destroy first the factories then the actual capital and the big bases near it.
hopefully this will mean when i log on i can choose a quick furball on a zone border or join in on a massed capital capture in the old gang bang tradition or I could set up missions in order to capture the bases needed to start a new capital attack picking either busy bases or quiet ones, I could grab a bomber and go for factories or try my hand at a sneak attack on a factory with fast jabo's.The point with the longer lasting affects of damage to factories and the fact that hitting them means its possible to take a capital (and open up the new target of capital city buildings) means that even if i only manage to hit a few factory buildings the effort is worth while because i can fly again and add to it.
As it is now if i flew a long way to a fuel factory and bombed it by the time i get home and land and then take off again to finnish the attack the damage i had caused in the first drop is almost respawned.It makes it all very pointless.
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RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS! RPS!
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RPS will get the numbers down to WB size.
people who log on for an hour or so don't want their choices severly limited... that is what is wrong with strat that attrits resources. The strat should simply capture bases.. Not havoing a resourse like radar just makes the hour you are on less fun.
lazs
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Laz what i was thinking is the bases furthest from the capital (ie the smallest but more closely together bases) would be independant of the resource war.
Its hard for me to explain the layout i envision for this but a simple map idea would be like a Honeycomb. In the centre of each hectogon(?)is the capital and on the edge where each capital zone fits together(ie the walls of each honeycomb section) you would have small bases that always have enough fuel to launch from but can be captured quite easily.BUT there would be so many so close together that being forced to take the next base wouldnt add 20 minutes to flight times.
As soon as you move closer to the capital the bases increase in size but increase in distance from one another.Basically it means to attack the capital you break through the small bases, capture a medium base inside the capital zone and from there you can launch attacks on the capital (as long as you can hold the base and keep it fed with supplies when its damaged by the defenders.
This system would reflect the 'arms of the octopus' picture.Each country has their head(capital) and from it small narrow front penetrating land grabs (arms) reaching out toward other enemy capitals.
I really think this could work purely because it would not make much difference to any sized map. Players even on huge maps like pizza could either get involved with the large scale war or pick a capital and fly from the bases around it and just fight on the outskirts.Strat players would have to break through the furbal areas but would in theory be able to hop over/bypass them and go directly for the factories etc if they organise it well enough.
No single player could hope to capture the capital and so milkrunning would not happen yet if they like they can spend their time capturing the small outer bases(not so important for overal war and so it wont piss people off so much).All group attacks would have to first hit the factories then the AA and capital buildings then somehow get those troops in. As they successfully damage all the large bases those bases DO become resource starved and forces defenders to move out from the capital to the outer bases in order to get the fuel and ammo needed. A capital attack would take some time and would require big numbers to take on all the tasks. If no one wants to cooperate for the more complicated capital captures theres still plenty of fighting to be had grabbing small bases.
HTC any comment maybe? if you can be bothered to wade through my rather lengthy explanation of course ;)
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well... I think the bases should be close together and fall pretty easy.. capture is fine for furballers it is the lying fallow that ruins the action... it is the lack of radar that is boring. I like your idea fine (as much as I understand it) but it seems that there is a limit to the amount of fields a map can have.. You might be stretching that limit.
More CV's are a good thing too... two CV's in every group would be good.
lazs
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vv laz i agree on the CV being more substantial.
Also recently i ve come to realise that most warships in WW2 took many more hits than I'd realised. Maybe a slight increase in their strength wouldnt be unrealistic.
I did a little scetch of capitals on a doodled map and added in lots of small bases along the borders of each capital zone then as i got closer to the capital I added larger bases but less of them then finally the largest bases (ended up 3 or 4 around the capital itself). Its by no means as densely packed as the pizza map yet theres actually areas where the bases can be very close together.
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Sounds to me like this is doable under the current rules.... and is more of a make the map thing than a change the rules thing. Ive hacked together a few maps but nothing as large as an Arena map, It sounds like we need to hit up the map Gurus and see if its realy possable and try to talk them in to putting it together for us.
on another thought how long can a spawn line be? I have visions of 400 mile spawns to a tank town for the armoured Quake set
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Worship the Comic
Gunns
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Ships should require multiple hits to sink and be able to sustain varying degrees of damage and the fleet ack, especially the manned 5 inchers, really need to cause more damage and less catostrophic kills for better gameplay.
And then lets talk about Spit5s killing 3 B17s in a single high speed high angle pass.
Stuff tends to explode way too easily in this game. I realize why but that doesnt necessarily make it a better game.