Where's WWI going from here?

[Pongo]

Ya we deliberately formed up at the half way mark and the enemy eventually came out with at least equal numbers, I dove against their low guy to start things rolling and they literally where all headed back to their ack right after the merge.
I guess the head rush of landing those 3 ack kills and getting congratulated by their team mates was just to appealing.

Put their mothers house out at the half way point, and every time the enemy strafes it put screams of pain on the head sets and flash red out on the screens of everyone on the other side so they have to defend their mothers house.
Something.

[Jayhawk]

Really the most annoying thing about your post other then your declaration after 3 hours of the arena being up that it will die as it is. Is that you provide no real thought into what your proposing.  
And if you put that thought into it, you wouldn't have proposed it.

I had no intention of proposing where I thought it was going, I listed base taking, gv's, etc, just as examples because I figured they'd be brought up.  I think a lot of people have been misunderstanding that (and if it's happening that much it's probably the author's fault).

And yes, on the second day of the arena I asked "what's next?" because I wanted to start a conversation about it, if you thought it was too early to even have this conversation, no one was forcing you to join in.

[Lusche]

I don't know if I care to see base capture,  but I would like to see base raids possible.  They didn't
capture fields with troop drops in WWI, but they quite often raided, strafed and bombed each others field.

We were having a pretty enjoyable evening last night but it ended crappy.  They would simply NOT leave their ack sphere.  We circled and circled at the mid point and they wouldn't meet us.  They just orbited in their ack-o-death.  Eventually people just impatient and inched over until we were fighting in their ack.  Half the deaths were due to ack.

If its going to be like that, we should have been able to just start de-acking and vulching and bombing thier tents into dust.  Not to capture it but just forthe principle of the thing.

Get rid of the ack-o=death.  Add a couple of light auto-ack and manned ack.  Give us small bomb loadouts (2x20lb?).

While I do to some part agree with your observation, I have to say I don't agree with the conclusion.
Making fields raidable and ack destroyable will probably not generate more dogfights... just more hordes hovering over the bases.

That's why  I'm all for a few trargets away from the fields... no-mans land and /or behind the frontlines, while keeping the current field design and structure the way it is. That would ensure that everyone has a field to safely up from, and would also enable pure furballers to continue to do what they enjoy.

On the hordes... something I observed last night:

I do understand the concept of chesspiece loyalty. While not really following it, I'm not opposed to it. I do understand the concept of winnign the war, and the imbalances It produces.
What I simply do not get, where the massive, player generated hordes and imbalances between the 4 WWI arenas. I frequently hopped all 4 for a few hours last night, and found the country numbers way off, for example:



This wasn't a moment only ... rooks were outnumbering both bish & knights for at least two hours. In other arenas, I experienced similar things with Knights and Bish. On top of that, local hordes did even attract even more and more green dots converging of them, even when there was only one or two enemy cons around... and the base can't be attacked or captured at all.

[Toad]

You can't make people relish the fight itself.

People either like the fight for itself or they like to <cough>win the war</cough>.

The ones that like to fight are the ones that come out into the middle. The ones that like to <cough>win</cough> are the ones hovering in their ack.

You can attempt to implement all the various techniques and strategies to make people engage. It won't work. You end up with what you have in the MAs. Hordewarrior, with various hordes trying to desperately avoid other hordes as they seek easy destruction of targets or strafing of trenches or field captures on the way to winning the war.

IMO, if the leave things as they are, eventually the ack huggers will either get bored and decide to fight or decide to go back to the MA. Either way it's a win for the WW1 setup.

It's going to take a few weeks for this to play out. In the end, if they leave it alone, WW1 will be populated by the folks that came to AH for the thrill of virtual air combat. After all, at present the only action in WW1 is....air combat. By default, if you're afraid to engage, you're going to be pretty bored in there pretty soon. I see that as a great thing.

If they start trying to put little gumdrops out to encourage the timid to fight, it will become just another hordewarrior MA with different planes.

All IMHO, of course.

[Saxman]

This may have been posted elsewhere: Observation balloons over No Man's Land. Destroying all of both country's balloons wins for your side. Map "resets," but just by having new balloons appear. No boot to lobby and change of bases, just a quick arena message and the balloons respawn. Additionally, each balloon will have a respawn timer (say, 15-20 minutes?) so if you don't destroy them relatively quickly they respawn and you have to destroy it again. This would do several things:

• Give objective-minded players something to get their interest.
• Furballers can either fight defending their balloons, or if so inclined still seek out those individual or small-group fights on the periphery between the bases.
• Keep the fights away from the fields. No ack-runners, (except for whatever AAA is present around or on the balloons themselves) and no vulchers. With no captures or territory movement there's no real incentive to attack the fields themselves. This should largely keep the area between fields clear for 1v1 dueling and small-group furballs. Granted you can't rule out balloon-busters doing this to draw enemy fighters away from the balloons, but if the furballers get a fight is that still a bad thing?
• Get the fights up off the deck if the balloons are set high enough.
• If one side doesn't want to defend or attack their balloons and just find fights around the edges, it's not like they're going to get booted on a reset. They can keep fighting to their hearts' content.

[EskimoJoe]

This may have been posted elsewhere: Observation balloons over No Man's Land. Destroying all of both country's balloons wins for your side. Map "resets," but just by having new balloons appear. No boot to lobby and change of bases, just a quick arena message and the balloons respawn. Additionally, each balloon will have a respawn timer (say, 15-20 minutes?) so if you don't destroy them relatively quickly they respawn and you have to destroy it again. This would do several things:
...

Oh my god, really Saxman?

Another brilliant Idea?

YES! 

[Toad]

Give objective-minded players something to get their interest.

They already have this; it's called the WW2 MA.

That entire post is an example of putting gumdrops out there to encourage those who really don't like to fight. It will escalate; there will never be enough gumdrops. Then you end up with the WW2 MAs.

Why not a bunch of floating cherries, grapes and bananas? Fly through enough 'fruit powerups' and your side wins the war!!!!

[Jayhawk]

Why not a bunch of floating cherries, grapes and bananas? Fly through enough 'fruit powerups' and your side wins the war!!!!

 

[Saxman]

They already have this; it's called the WW2 MA.

That entire post is an example of putting gumdrops out there to encourage those who really don't like to fight. It will escalate; there will never be enough gumdrops. Then you end up with the WW2 MAs.

Why not a bunch of floating cherries, grapes and bananas? Fly through enough 'fruit powerups' and your side wins the war!!!!

Y'know what Toad? Just shut it already. I'm sick of your "My way is right and anyone who disagrees with me doesn't matter" attitude. This is NOT your game. It's not my game. It's not ANYONES' game but hitech's. If he wants to put the sharks with fricken lazer beams on their heads in WWI he damn will CAN. You are NOT the only person playing this game, and whether you like it or not other people have different opinions on what they want to see, and they have every right to voice their opinion. There's people here who are loving the WWI planes but want to see something more than just the furballing. Why do they have to be "stuck" with WWII when they WANT to do this with WWI planes? If you want to just furball in WWII planes you already HAVE the DA. Why can't people who want objectives in WWI have an arena for it as well? Because it's not YOUR way of playing and HAS to be wrong? Get off your high horse and STFU, because you are NOT the one who makes the decisions of what goes into the game.

Because I have news for you: I GUARANTEE that at some point there's going to be some form of objective-based play introduced in WWI. It's not because people are requesting it, but because of what HTC already said about the WWI arenas. HTC says WWI will be used as a test-bed for new gameplay mechanics in the WWII Mains before adapting them to the Mains. That means if they want to look at a new way to approach the strategic, tactical or "win the war" gameplay in the mains, it's getting tested in WWI.

[Toad]

What's really funny is that all of you clowns accusing ME of trying to make people play "my way" are demanding people play YOUR way.

Of course, the WW2 MA is already YOUR way. You have all the objectives you could ever want. You won't be satisfied with that though; you want all arenas in AH to be as screwed up as the MA.

You guys are the ones that can't accept any other way than your own.

I don't give a fig that you've got what you want in the WW2 MA. Makes no difference to me at all. I don't have to play there. I'm happy you all have objectives to steamroll.

What I do care about is that there is now a place for another type of player in the AH universe. We have that right now in WW1.

Of course, you guys can't stand that and have to change it to what you already have.

As far as shutting it, dream on pal.

You can yell at your countrymen on range channel and maybe have some effect. (Are they not playing YOUR way?) Your little tantrums here don't bother me a bit though.

[Lusche]

It's going to take a few weeks for this to play out. In the end, if they leave it alone, WW1 will be populated by the folks that came to AH for the thrill of virtual air combat. After all, at present the only action in WW1 is....air combat.

To some of us, air combat is more than just having constant merry-go rounds at 500ft or pre-arranged duels.

I am convinced there's a way to increase diversity of combat situations without landgrabbing & base killing, and without killing the basic "furball setup" That can indeed stay in the WW2 MA's.

[BaldEagl]

First of all I don't think the bases in WWI should be able to be destroyed or taken.  Either of those things effectively stops the fight but there should be a way to allow those who like bombers and/or GV's to play in the sandbox.  So first of all make the airfield defenses impervious to GV's, bombers and fighters.

If bases are out of the equation as an objective then theGVers and bombers need something else.  

I would propose 3-6 GV bases at the edges of no man's land with a capturable objective in the middle.  No need to drop troops or anything.  Simple occupation of the objective is the purpose.  Capture of the objective immediatly gives players actively participating in the capture some reward like extra points to their GV (or bomber) score. There would be no map reset so all battles would remain fluid.  There would have to be maybe 2 tanks added to accomplish this.

For the bomber guys, the area surrounding the capturable objective in the middle of no mans land would be surrounded by barbed wire and other obsticals to the GV's.  These obsticals would need to be bombed to allow the GV's through (GV's probably wouldn't be able to do much damage to barbed wire).  The bombers wouldn't carry bombs capable of destroying or disabling a GV but be fully capable of destroying the obsticals.  Once destroyed the obsticals would remain down for 15 minutes.  Again, a couple of bombers would be needed.

With this, the GVer's get to play in the sandbox without upsetting the furballs and without being bombed out of the game.  Bombers get to play and give the fighters another target.

I could also see the use of observation ballons in this scenario to spot enemy GV's which would show up as radar dots on the GVer's maps.  These ballons would be limited in number near each GV base, could be destroyed by fighters or bombers guns, and would also remain down for 15 minutes before respawning.  Yet another objective for those fighters who don't care to furball.

Something like this totally seperates the "win the war" players from the furballers allowing everyone to play the game they want without destroying, but in fact adding to, what WWI is now.

[Saxman]

Where does it say that having an objective for people to work for doesn't mean you can't play "your way?" What the frell does it matter to you WHY the other guy is fighting, so long as you're fighting? What would be the big difference between furballing between bases like you have now, and furballing around a balloon? Is the fight inferior just because your opponent is fighting towards and objective?

Well gee, then you better warn the 500 people that fly FSO three times a month, or the hundreds that fly snapshots and scenarios. They're fighting an inferior fight because there's a purpose behind it beyond just fighting!

It's a completely misguided notion that "landgrabbing" kills fights. When I'm fighting to take or defend a base, and that base falls I RARELY see the fight just end. Do you want to know what ACTUALLY happens? More times than not the "losing" side immediately ups from the next base over to take it back, while the "winner" turns to the next target in the line and the fight starts all over again. I've spent hours moving from one base to the next in a constant running battle and never had a lack of targets to shoot at. So WHAT if the guy you're fighting against is fighting for some objective than just the fight? If he's fighting just as hard does it REALLY matter why?

And btw, if the hordeing and ganging is all the fault of the landgrabbers, why not explain why hordeing and ganging at furball lake in the DA--where 90% of the population is sitting at 20k in Tempests, 4-Hogs, and P-51Ds--is just as bad?

[Elfie]

Toad's right Sax.....you already have all the objective oriented game play you could ever ask for.....over in the WWII arenas.

The WWI arenas offer a different style of game play. Why do you think HiTech needs to change that?

For HTC this could very easily be another revenue stream by drawing in another type of player. About a year or so ago I left AH because I'd lost interest in the WWII arenas because of the style of game play there. The WWI arenas got me to subscribe again and last night I had a blast. Thanks for the fun times HTC!!

If HTC made the WWI arenas more of the same old same old (ie..WWII MA) I'd likely cancel my account again.

[Elfie]

And btw, if the hordeing and ganging is all the fault of the landgrabbers, why not explain why hordeing and ganging at furball lake in the DA--where 90% of the population is sitting at 20k in Tempests, 4-Hogs, and P-51Ds--is just as bad?

Tempests, Spit XIV's, C-Hogs, -4Hogs etc are all perked in the DA now.....