In a Nut Shell, The only Fix is to the player mentality of a tactic and how it is used.
The game is not broke, it is not favored either way. Players must simply get out of their comfort zone and learn the other aspects of the game beside the consistant noe tactic that HT has placed as a catalyst to attract the new players. Your not only seeing new players but a few of old timers still doing this, progress has become stagnant in their development in this game and continue to breed this easy mentality.
I think a lot of people read too much of a plan into stuff. I don't think having a minimum radar height was specifically designed as something for new guys to do, but rather because it's there people gravitate toward it. People like to succeed. The vast majority of people also like to find the path of least resistance to success. Why make it harder for yourself than it has to be?
When you're dogfighting, it would be silly to limit yourself to only using 50% throttle at the most, and only roll to the right. However, a lot of people seem to expect the land grabbers to do exactly that, artificially limit themselves in game where they could be doing more to increase their chance of success.
NOE has 2 things going for it- First, it generally produces less defense because of the surprise factor, and increases the chance for success. Second, it's convenient. People don't have to 'waste time' getting to altitude and going in, they can up and head direct to target, which apparently is appealing.
Some will say its too hard to noe, or too hard to take a town, I call BS!! Its just as easy as it ever was you just cant do it with 3 people anymore, you have to do it with even more. Super Hordes. That's the next issue, how to fix Super Hordes, local eny would do that but thats another discussion later and totally dependant on player behavior.
The only "problem" with hording is that nobody seems to want to put up an organized defense against it. My favorite times in the game, bar none, are with my squad going into the largest bar dar we can find. We don't always live to land our kills, but we do have a heck of a good time getting kills and working on wing tactics. For some reason what happens more often than not though, is two hordes will clash, and one of them will pretty much immediately die out, leaving the few guys who wanted to stick it out to be constantly outnumbered until the horde gets over a field, generating a vulchfest.
The problem is not that there's a horde there, the problem is there aren't enough numbers choosing to oppose it.
So now the only problem there is to complain about is players that choose NOT to police themselves and instead participate in what is easy, the super horde noe, that cares less about the health and welfare of the game but their own selfish need to roll a base as easy as HT can allow it, the same selfish whack o mole players that wants nothing to do with development of the game or oneself, but to take the easiest route with the littlest of conflict for the maximum amount of reward in whatever way they define that.
How does that help the game and the community again?
The same could be said about the people who don't oppose the horde. They get shot down once, and head off to find easier prey. How does that help the game and the community again?
Remember, the fight isnt about the quantity of a fight but the quality of a fight.
...to you. Not everybody enjoys the same parts of the game. I happen to like multiple on multiple engagements. I get my 'Walter Mitty' moments from being on one side of two hordes clashing with many planes and people of widely varying skill levels. That's what takes the game beyond an XBox game, the sheer number of other humans at work in my vicinity.
Nobody is advocating getting rid of the practice of noe, its more about advocating knowing when to use it responsibly as one of the tools in the tool bag and not the fix all, end all, means of running missions of which it has become.
Nobody is advocating getting rid of the practice of using full throttle when you're fighting and need to go fast, it's more about advocating knowing when to use it responsibly as one of the tools in the tool bag and not the fix all, end all means of going fast it has become.
...Sounds pretty silly doesn't it? When you wish to insert a nail into a board, you do not do anything fancy. You grab a hammer, and pound it in.
The heart of the problem is, there were a lot of people that enjoyed being able to feel like they had an effect on the game by taking a few (operative word, few) of their casual buddies and go take a base. A half dozen heavy fighters and a goon were all it took to take out the town.
It didn't require that everybody have the town map memorized with specific points to drop bombs for maximum building destruction coverage. They were able to just go in, drop their bombs, fire their rockets, and gun down the few remaining buildings. They felt like they'd made a difference, and maybe a few guys upped to fight. A nice piece of bite size fun, it didn't take hours of planning or multitudes of people. Heck, half the guys could be drunk, and still be able to pull it off.
The problem is, a base that's reasonably takable by the above mentioned group of casual guys is completely trivial for a horde of 15 or 20. This becomes the path of least resistance, hence why it becomes popular.
As it stands now, the town requires one of two things, either a few guys that have put in the time to memorize the town layout and figure out where to drop their bombs for maximum effect and some escorts, or large numbers. One of those options is far more common and easier to find in the arena.
The other problem with the arena is, the maps were designed with the old setup in mind, under the new setup bases take way more effort and time to roll, making it more difficult to win the war.
Although I'm not much of a landgrabber, I personally think it's far better for the game to have that option available to them, and live with the fact that hordes and NOEs can do it 'too easily' than to remove the option and force people who don't find it fun to diagram the town and have specific assigned targets to do so.
I personally think Hitech's response in this thread is a really reasonable one. I'm looking forward to seeing how those changes work. The only other arena tweak that I think would be beneficial is the often mentioned 150 foot radar limit, but the inability to use autopilot below 151 feet.
Wiley.
