ENY disablements

[Shane]

since i like you so much, too, you can have slapshot's beer.

[SlapShot]

Originally posted by Zanth
To keep this in perspective, didn't your own squad decide to move the biggest team in the midst of all this to?  That certainly was not a help, this all got to the point where Hitech had to do something. and here we are.

If you are referring to the 13th TAS .. yes we did move.

The impetus was mine alone. In the last 6 months, the particiapation of the 13th diminished and I found myself lonewolfing alot. I made some very good friends in the Rooks (Morpheus, KillnU, XJ - fellow P-38 flyers) and wanted to wing with them and pick up some P-38 skills at the same time, so I asked permission to move to the Rooks.

We didn't stay there for too long (I think 2 tours) and then we moved to the Bish for 1 tour (at my insistence) and now we have moved back to the Knights and are here to stay for quite some time. Also, the 13th is a small squad and our influence is hardly a drop in the bucket when it comes to effecting the numbers.

This tour is what gave me the real insight as to what I have said.

[Morpheus]

VERY well said Slapshot!

What you said gives someone who does not know, the best perspective posible of how all three countries have evolved.

The game will fix itself. I know this for one reason. The players are the game. There is no magical force involved here which determine what country will be the strongest.

Not to beat a dead horse here but. It is only when the players of the "weaker" country decide to do something about getting beaten will you see things begin to turn around.

With that being said. I am begining to convice myself again that this whole ENY thing, altho isn't a bad idea and is an honest effort to try and make things better, really isnt needed.

All sides have weathered some sort of storm. Its the natural evolution of the game.

[Zanth]

As they say, quantity is a quality all it's own.  Anyway, all this is all pretty redundant, Hitech has already got this in his sights.   "Natural evolution" be damned, I'll bet you the creator will straighten it out.

[Grimm]

Originally posted by SlapShot
... cause for the most part, they have fun TOGETHER.

Sorry for being longwinded.

Slapshot IMHO has explained the situation pretty well.  

[DoKGonZo]

Some of the guys on the mailing list I'm on have alluded to the odds the Rooks have fought back from. And hearing the other things that went on over the last couple years does explain the country loyalties a bit more.


Overall I think base capture and strat is a fine metaphor to use for an arena game. It keeps things changing, and you get to use the entire map as opposed to just the "furball fields." But there are some subtle things which make base capture and strat much less of a team effort than it should be - and that probably is hurting things a little. Such as:

- It only takes one lone bomber to pork HQ radar. If it took more, maybe you'd get escorted bomber missions (I stress the "maybe" as its logical, but I can't say for sure if it'd happen).

- Attack bombers aren't needed at all to capture a base. So there's no escort duty, no specialization of task, no coordination - just the "conveyor belt." The closest thing to a speciality I see on a regular basis is Me110's shooting down the city.

- It only takes one plane-load of troops to take a field. Again, this fosters minimalistic tactics - sneaking in a C47 instead of escorting a group of them.

- In general, fields and carrier groups are very easy to knock out for Jabos. Not only is this not realistic, but it makes odds imbalances more visible as the fields themselves are reduced so easily. Adding AAA is not the answer - as that fosters ack-hugging - but it should take more than a flight of P38's to render a field defenseless. Taking a field should require all hangars to be down - and the more hangars that are up, the quicker ack rebuilds itself. This would (I think) cut down on the vultch syndrome - or you'd have to have more people dedicated to strafing AAA. But even that is an improvement.

- Perk points for hitting deep strat targets is not in keeping with the time it takes to get to these targets. There's no real incentive to go after these - alone or en masse. Likewise the perk cost for launching a 163 to stop an HQ attack no way cover the few perks that will be won, assuming the gunners don't wipe out your nice jet ride. So strat ends up being a little-used part of the arena.

Again ... these are subtle little things which I see (as in just my opinion) as disrupting the team-based aspects of the game.


I also have to wonder if a rolling plane set might not help. Perks have effectively removed the most uber planes from the game, so everyone flies the most uber non-perked ride. And if everyone had to start learning all the planes, they may start relying on each other a bit more. No way you can be quite the same lone wolf in a P-40B as you can in a P51D. And no uber-jabos - field capture will be hard in early war.

    -DoK

[Zanth]

Good points DoK, not a fan of rollling plane set though.  Lived that once already.

[hitech]

Pyro and I this morning were  kicking around the idea of making 2 changes.

The way the reset  system works is that once a country is down to a set # of air fields the war ends.

Was thinking of raising this number to between 4 or 6, or posibly a % of the original fields.


2nd would then also change field capture (no specifics) but the changes would make it a lot harder to capture a field.


One we didn't discuse but I have been thinking about, is moving towns farther away from the fields. This would promote more fighting and less vulching when trying to capture a field.


On a side note: It is refreshing to have you around again DOK, it is fun for me discusing game design, from a game design view point, VS this is what I want view point.


HiTech

[CurtissP-6EHawk]

Originally posted by hitech
Pyro and I this morning were  kicking around the idea of making 2 changes.

The way the reset  system works is that once a country is down to a set # of air fields the war ends.

Was thinking of raising this number to between 4 or 6, or posibly a % of the original fields.


2nd would then also change field capture (no specifics) but the changes would make it a lot harder to capture a field.


One we didn't discuse but I have been thinking about, is moving towns farther away from the fields. This would promote more fighting and less vulching when trying to capture a field.

HiTech

If you move the cities further away, can GVs spawn close to them. Cities unprotected, i.e. a ways from the protecting base, make it eiser for the bad guys to attack it, or so it seems

[Zanth]

Sounds good, its the last part of the war nobody likes to live in.

[Drunky]

It seems like the words 'AH community' get thrown around almost as part of an equation.  But I think this is a short cut to actually defining what this 'community' is.

Is the community just the people on the boards?

Are the newbies included in this community?

Does it include the younger quakers who don't appreciate ACM?

Is it everyone who plays AH?


I point this out because it will depend on which definition you use of 'community' to help solve whatever problem it is this is being solved.

[hitech]

My Definition is 2 parts.

Player social interaction.
Everyone who playes ah.


HiTech

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by hitech
Pyro and I this morning were  kicking around the idea of making 2 changes.

The way the reset  system works is that once a country is down to a set # of air fields the war ends.

Was thinking of raising this number to between 4 or 6, or posibly a % of the original fields.


2nd would then also change field capture (no specifics) but the changes would make it a lot harder to capture a field.


One we didn't discuse but I have been thinking about, is moving towns farther away from the fields. This would promote more fighting and less vulching when trying to capture a field.


On a side note: It is refreshing to have you around again DOK, it is fun for me discusing game design, from a game design view point, VS this is what I want view point.


HiTech

Those sound like great gameplay changes. It has always seemed the focus was on 'land-grabbing' and not the acutal fighting. Making the land grabbing portion of the game more difficult, as we saw with the fuel porkage limitation, re-emphasizes the actual combat effort required to take a base.

Zazen

[DoKGonZo]

Thanks, HT. It's good to be back ... I guess it took me a few years to wipe the memory of Motorsims from my consciousness and feel like talking game design again.


Anyway ... moving towns further away. As it stands, 2 Me110G's can take down a city in under 5 minutes. Moving the city further away only makes this easier. You'd need to harden the buildings a lot for this to make a difference - but if you do that, then there's really no need to move the city.

However ... what if you blurred the line between city and field complex more? Meaning, what if you spread the field out towards the city and put some assets (barracks, fuel and ammo stores, radar tower) in this middle area - and made all these necessary to take down to capture a field. Maybe even put an auxillery air strip for fighters only down there to launch from (instead of the "H" launch point). If the area to vultch gets bigger, it's easier to launch fighters maybe.


Reducing the threshhold for theatre reset is probably a good idea. At least the outnumbered side won't "suffer" as long.


I know a lot of people dislike rolling plane set. It's just a shame that we have 6 years worth of planes and only use about 6 months of it. And the trap of late war planes is that they are so capable on their own. You can do well without a wingman in most of them. Not so in pre-1942 rides - where everyone's level cruising speed is pretty close and you aren't bristling with high-quality cannons. And pre-1942 you'd have to use bombers and dive bombers for field capture - no fighters around capable of carrying 1000 pounders.


The thinking vis-a-vis making field capture harder I think should be more than just raising the difficulty. It should still be "easy" for the team that is willing and able to coordinate and work together. Just increasing the number of C47's needed could change things a lot. But you'd need to balance this by making barracks hard targets requiring a 1000 pounder at least to take them down.


Another thing that I think adds to the vultch situation is the toughness of GV's. You end up with 20 fighters vultching 10 or 12 GV's so often and it just stays that way for a long while - boring for all concerned. I don't think 50 cal's should take out an Ostwind (well ... it should kill the crew ... but anyway). But if certain planes had closer to historic effect on GV's, then you may see more specialization. I'm talking the Sturmi and Hurri IID mainly here. If these planes were more effective at killing GV's, you'd probably see them in action clearing bases. And they need protection from fighters - so again, this would enhance team play and may give people who still haven't mastered air-to-air something they could get good at and contribute with.

    -DoK

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Since there seems to be a need to promote unity and co-operation among players in countries, how about a positive system rather than a restrictive system.

For a country that is outnumbered by "X" percentage:

Extra perks and points are awarded to a player who successfully creates a mission that is filled by players and executed. (promotes leadership, charismatic hard core leaders are needed to make the country grow, and grow stronger)

Extra perks and points for participants of said mission.
(promotes co-operation and participation, help encourage
players to grow together as a team)

Prices of perk planes substantially reduced when used in a mission.
(allows an extra advantage for an outnumbered country to create
and execute successful mission)

Outnumbered countries bases, towns, and strats hardened in proportion to the imbalance.
(allows them the chance to defend easier, and a chance to take the offense because their territory is a little tougher to take)


In this way, the country that is down on numbers gets multiple advantages, hence leveling the playing field somewhat, without handicapping other players and taking some of their fun.

I never wrote the sort of code that AH uses, I only wrote CNC machinery codes, so I do not know how difficult it would be to code.

At least, rather than whine, complain, or criticize, I've made an effort to provide an alternative solution to better the game without punishing anyone.

Make of it what you will.