New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[Pyro]

I don't remember who first suggested making it based on the ENY value, but I do like that idea.  I wasn't very keen on just selecting a handful of planes for this, but using the ENY value gives it a nice scalability to fit the situation.   for the suggestion.

[HUN]

I'm going to get a bunch of guys to defect with me to the Knights just so I can watch AKAK fly a Spit V.

[DipStick]

Hope it works HT. Do think about some of the ideas you've heard on gameplay though. There have been several suggestions that might improve overall gameplay.

[Edbert]

Originally posted by Pyro
I don't remember who first suggested making it based on the ENY value, but I do like that idea.  I wasn't very keen on just selecting a handful of planes for this, but using the ENY value gives it a nice scalability to fit the situation.   for the suggestion.

How hard would it be to make the ENY rating of a given aircraft fluctuate with the statistics? This wouldn't have to be calculated hourly or even daily. Allowing them to change from one tour to the next should suffice. If the ENY ratings were set via indisputable statistics rather than an arbitrary human hand it should be palatable to the overall community.

Is that possible, or more accurately, feasible?

[Karnak]

Interesting.  I'm glad that you guys aren't going with the time out.


Now, when these aircraft get disabled (gone from the stable, not perked, correct?) the players who are dedicated P-51D drivers, for example, will have to switch sides to fly their P-51Ds.

I wonder if that will have any side effects such as perk point gathers seeking to fight the smaller opponent rather than the overpopulated opponent or statistical changes in aircraft usage due to the most desireable aircraft being unavailable for the most populous country.

Ideally it will simply get people to balance the sides and few aircraft will ever be disabled.

[ghostdancer]

You know the more I step back and think about the time delay the more I think it will have a detrimental effect. The reason why is not in and of itself but because when combined with other changes and variables I think it will make it very, very difficult to actually conduct successful offensive operations.

First off I think we have to recognize why a lot of people play this type of game and stick with for the long term. One of the integral parts of the game (and of AW, WBs, and WWIIonline) is players forming squadrons. They do this for several reasons including being social but also are more importantly to work together to form a group goal. This way the less skill player can fill accomplishment and that he is contributing when his squad pulls off a successful defense or offensive strike. Instead of just focusing on his own number of kills. He might end up flying goons, flying bombers, or covering his wing’s man back .. and even though he doesn’t get kills or is killed a lot still gets a sense of accomplishment in obtaining a goal or task that he and his buds set out to do.

You have to realize that except for the earlier stages of WWI you never had air combat for the sole purpose of just shooting down other planes. There was always a primary purpose to combat operations that went beyond this. In WWI it developed to deny the other side the ability to conduct scouting reconnaissance missions which laid the ground work for early practices of trying to establish air superiority. In WWII with the improvement of bombers and attack aircraft you had the development of combined arms. Where aircraft were used to support the land and sea arms and their objectives of obtaining or defending territory. Tactical bombing support this directly and need fighters to protect them. Strategic bombing was more indirect aimed at denying the means for the enemy to fight and also need fighter escorts. Even in the BoB the goal was to destroy the other air force so that an invasion could be launch without the worry of aerial attacks. In Midway the goal was not to destroy the defending airforce but destroy the ships that ferried them into battle and thus denying the US the means to deploy planes and ships to defend territory.

So truthfully there was almost never a time of just mindless furballing. Their was always a purpose behind furballing, setting up screens, JABO and strategic bombing which is why squadrons were formed in the first place. In AH (AW, WB) you have the same the same thing of people grouping together to accomplish a goal and then add in the social aspect which keeps the squad together for more than just one mission.

Pyro compared things to a FPS. This is not a first person shooter .. the goal there is usually to see how many times you can capture the flag or how many kills you can get in a set period of time. And this set period of time is usually not very long at all. Plus, even with the ones that use a spawn delay they tend to have a significant portion just log and go fine another server hosting the game. Lastly I would say that community for FPS are not as anywhere near as social or intricate as you have with the squads of games such as AH, AW, WB, and WWIIonline. How many FPS clans do you have that span 30-60 people or have been together in many case for 6 years. It’s a comparision of apples and oranges in my opinion where you can’t draw conclusions on how players will react and apply them to the other type/genre of game.

[ghostdancer]

Now there has been quite a few changes since AH2 came out all which taken all together and then ad in the time delay could very well make it extremely difficult to conduct offensive operations. At the very least it will promote even more concentration of flyers and will not promote spreading out flyers at all around the fronts. Remember some people are complaining not just about the spike in numbers happening on Sundays (other days seem to be evening out with not as drastic number imbalances … although their will always be a side with more and side with less) but also the fact of people flying in large groups.

[list=1]

• FH, BH, VH in AH2 has been changed so that they are just down for 15 minutes. This strengthens the defensive position of an attacked field since within 15 minutes they can be upping aircraft and GVs again.

What it promotes is for the attacking force to come in with even more pilots to knock down all the hangars at once and then leave a large force in place to suppress the field and defend against other fields sending in aircraft. It also promotes the use of bombers in a tactical role.

But overall it makes the field harder to capture and promotes more concentration of force against it.

• Fuel now can’t really be reduced past 75% (or I haven’t seen it happen in the MA). This allows the defending field to press its fighters out farther away from the defending field and setup screens to break incoming attacks. Net result is you start getting the attackers to contentrate more force again to break through these screens, hit the field and suppress them.
• Barracks when killed our down for 2 hours and it only takes 250 lbs to kill a barracks. It has become something of standard policy now to stop an offensive that you send in people to kill as many barracks as you can reach as far as you can reach. Resulting in many times barracks being down 3 or more sectors back from the front line.

Its very difficult to stop 1 player from getting in and killing barracks.

The counter to this is to goon and bring in supplies but remember it takes 8 goon drops to bring up a field. And at times it’s a long boring task to do so. And when done basically can come to naught as one enemy comes in and kills it again in a single pass undoing a significant effort of work. Couple this with time delay for deaths and you could really be discouraging the few who do fly goons to stop doing so. Who wants to get picked off in a goon running supplies when you have flown a long time and now have to wait afterwards.

If that lone person or person is from a country with reduced numbers they don’t even have to worry about their dying delaying them to fly again. Reinforcing this appropriate tactic in light of the current setting. Fortunately it will also discourage the use of dive bombing buffs and suicide JABOs by the two countries with greater numbers.

But overall it again this favors the defense strongly.

• Reduce cost perk planes for the side with lesser numbers. It is starting to become standard practice to use the fastest perk plane you can get to go goon hunting. Perfectly normally and expected to see 262s out hunting goons and buffs. But remember if the goon pilot is flying in from 3-5 sectors with troops because all other troops are dead they have spent a long time in the air. To die to a perk plane and then to be hit with a time delay would be more than frustrating, it would discourage people from gooning and we don’t exactly have tons of people volunteering but see what will happen when they start getting picked off and have to wait 1-10 minutes to fly again.
• Now throw in the time delay for flying based on your sides numbers. The situation already takes a lot more skill and organization and numbers to really take a base against opposition but now its going to take more since any of the attackers who die will have to wait to up again in effect staggering the attack which helps the defenders. But remember the attackers only have a 15 minute window to get base before hangars start coming up. With the base guaranteed to have 75% fuel the defenders basically can take advantage of lulls even better than currently to get spawn like mad and get their screens in place.  

Now couple that with having to bring in goons from a long distance away (way back from the front lines) and it becomes even harder to conduct offensive operations.
[/list]

So take all these things together, if they stay all in place, and I think it will really tip the balance toward the defense to an extreme point. And what it will encourage is for those players on launching attacks to group up even more. Since it will take overwhelming force to knock down a field, suppress, and capture it since they will need to have enough involved to be able to maintain an effective group around their targets while others wait to reup. Plus, it will encourage more group flying since hate to say .. every US military manual said it .. its safer in numbers and safer and more effective to wing. When you are face with the negative of you dying and not being able to fly for a set period of time because of it you will start doing what the U.S. did .. developing tactics that focus on wing and group work to minimize this.

I think that putting the time delay in place with all the other things currently in place will drastically change the flavor of the game and have a very negative effect on the player base and their participation in the game. I would recommend reviewing all of these things together as a whole and considering possible results of putting a set of conditions in place (with others) that further increases the power of the defense.

Lastly, I still say its not addressing the cause of things. Most nights (by the tracking that I have started trying to do .. see previous post of screen shots) shows that most nights except for Sunday that the number spread is not very bad. Sunday night is very bad because that is just when quite a few Rooks have their squad night. Saturday is hard because wives, girlfriends want to go out as is the case on Friday. Sunday night is the night of staying in. Situation has worsen because several squads on other countries now avoid the night instead of trying to turn out more players to oppose Rooks that night. Although Rooks are as Dreidock pointed out starting to get sort of clumsy and not very effective because of their numbers on that night and have foster a Knits/Bishops vs the Rook attitude to offset them (natural reaction).

I am not 100% against the concept. Its just with all the other things in place I really think it is a bad move and will cause a lot more problems or start to impact the player base. So if it goes in place I would say please review the other factors that were put in place.

[FDutchmn]

Originally posted by hitech
We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.

As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.


HiTech

not sure if I like this idea... I would rather see a perk cost on those planes rather than disabling them entirely.

[ghostdancer]

Ahhh! Teaches me to spend my time writing a logical (or I hope logical) counterpoint and not reading that HTC is already thinking about a different idea instead.

Oh, well.

[RT]

Suggest increasing the perk incentives instead.

The imbalance is no real problem.  The community has adequate remedies in place.  

A greater problem posed by balancing is creating stagnant fronts.  The game plays better when the terrain changes and there is a flow, when there is shifting momentum.  

It is easy to disable troops and due to the size of towns captures take more effort.

Part of the reason the out-numbered team gets rolled back is because at times people could care less about territory.  The only impact of the numbers imbalance relates to capturing territory.  In almost all situations when the side with numbers begins to launch a sustained attack, the out-numbered side can see it coming and do something about it.  

There are plenty of opportunities for the out-numbered to fly air to air or jump into a gv.  

Step back for a second, pause, and think through what we are contemplating.  The perk system was a sensible incentive and can be tweaked.  Further management such as down time to force balancing is excessive.  

rthus

[Soda]

Originally posted by FDutchmn
not sure if I like this idea... I would rather see a perk cost on those planes rather than disabling them entirely.

I agree.  It would allow people to ride out short term numbers issues but would get awfully expensive on the guys who refuse to change over longer periods of time.  You might also have a perk/disabled threshold, the first step is a perk cost, then if it gets worst aircraft are disabled.  Just two sliding scales instead of one.  Basing it on ENY value is fine, some of them might need to be adjusted a bit.

Any way to make the player counts based on people actually playing, removing the "tower-squatters" who seem to log in and then go afk for long periods of time.  I'm always amazed at the number of players I see like that, are they sitting there waiting for reset points or something?

-Soda

[seabat]

Sorry, but I am confused.

We are going with a system based on the ENY value using the same formula as the time system uses.

As the number of player increases on a side planes with an ENY value less then the "balance output" will be disabled.

HiTech

Does that mean the side with more players will be flying more spitfires or more tempests?

[Jackal1]

Simple question HT. Are you saying that you have definitely decided to procede with this?

[hitech]

Yes Jackal1

HiTech

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by hitech
Yes Jackal1

HiTech

Thank you.