Think about the concequences of what you are asking. The new player who has 0 perks will not be able to fly any of the fast late war planes. Unless they are experienced pilots they will die a lot!
They already die a lot, Clifra. Planes don't matter. Think of the mathematical concept of infinity. Infinity + infinity is still just infinity. They die infinitely, everytime they up. The only difference is do they ruin the game for the rest of the people or not.
The state and mindset of the "new player" is grossly exaggerated amongst the community IMO. Remember back on our own newbie days - we didn't care how much we died. We took for granted we die a lot. Why? Because we were newbies.
All the 'best' or 'recommended' planes didn't matter. We just died. It wasn't only after we began to understand about flying and stuff, did fast planes or turny planes started to matter.
This tendency to believe that "newbies will quit if they don't have an easy plane" is circulated around ferociously - but I dare say it's a myth. People just adapt to what the game offers.
What really makes the people quit, is repeated experiences of frustration, lameness, and stagnant gameplay. And it's not the newbies who are quitting either. It's the vets.
This will create much more frustration to an already difficult and frustrating game to the new player.
It's basically the same thing in every flight sim game Clifra. People cope with frustrations, and get motivated to fly better. They adapt to things.
If someone is gonna quit just because they have to pay a small sum of 'game money' to fly a powerful plane, then the chances are they will quit for some other reason already.
And it's not like the planes are inaccessible, or perked at hundreds of points which require months to build up the perks to just fly it once. It's 3 points. You could fly and go HO every sortie and that'll still earn you enough perks to fly a late war plane.
They are confidence builders. Granted, they may use them as a crutch and never learn the shear joy of the early war turners. It's the way things are.
The question is, do they have to be this way?
Imaging the new player who logs on to AH for the 1st time and it real stoked to fly the P51D and he finds out he can't until he earns some perk points. Can you not hear the uterances of "Man, this game sucks!". One lost free trialer.
The same thing can be applied to any perked plane Clifra.
Some people's favorites are the jets and rockets. Brit fans love the Spit14. USN fans may want the ultimate Corsair. These are all perked. They don't complain about it. They cope with it. Despite the outrageous perk prices slapped on the F4U-4 or the Spit14, or even the Ta152H, nobody ever complains about it even if they'd love to fly it.
People learn to cope with stuff. Complaints don't last forever, and it's not always "I'm discontent, so I'm gonna quit".
However, unlike the discontent(if any,) with perked planes, think about the consistent complaints regarding game play of late. Complaints about 'runners'. The horde. Etc.. these are what really make people quit.
Not only this, now that you've perked the runners favorite planes what do you think they are going to do? You got it, run more.
They already run as much as they can. The 'runniness' already reached a terminal point, so it basically makes no difference in gameplay at all.
However, the difference is, this time, the absolute number of 'runners' is gonna be reduced since those performers are perked.
Most people barely manage 1.0 k/d in the MA. If we assume they can maybe earn 1~1.5 perk point per sortie, the late war planes which cost 3 points are gonna take about two sorties to earn.
In other words, someone with a 1.0 k/d is gonna be flying a late-war plane every 3rd sortie they up(as compared to every sortie currently). The numbers are effectively down to 1/3rd of what it used to be. The rest of those people are flying those 'in-between' sorties in mid-war planes.
The runners may run more, but they're only 1/3rd the numbers they used to be. The rest 2/3rds will be flying in mid-war planes, which have a lower performance margin, and can be caught up and forced to fight much more easily.
They will be even less inclined to engage for fear of losing those perkies. So now you've only made one problem worse. Now these guys will do nothing but vulch, cherry pick and run.
Until they're caught and shot down.
Remember we're talking about the average level of pilots here. The good pilots escape from hectic fights even in Zekes. The average pilot pushes his luck so far, until he gets shot down once.
Then, his 3 points are lost. With his meager 1.0 k/d he'll have to fly other free planes once or twice to stack up some perks.
And every time those average pilots up mid-war free planes, is one less late-war plane in the MA.
