Give me a WAR

[Letalis]

When I first joined I loved logging on a couple times a day and seeing how the front lines had shifted, it was great.  Now the game has more of a big arena feel to it... a great arena mind you, but not a war. I didn't care about perks, but I liked the idea of winning a war.  I think the repetitiveness of "furballing without meaning" is the reason I've spent so much time away over the last 4 yrs. 

With map changes occurring so frequently what incentive is there for the majority of folks to do anything but simply furball? There is no continuity from map to map- any work grabbing bases goes *poof* with an arena reset.  Now I'm a big fan of furballs too don't worry.  It is sad to see a buff pilot level a town without any meaning attached to it. Buff pilot goes and lands damage, town fixes itself and there is a net of nada.  Why doesn't all this carnage have meaning??  

I think there is a way to put the WAR back in Aces High despite changing player levels and maps.  One way is by tweaking the strat system, but there would be gameplay frustrations when you log on only to find that you are limited to 25% fuel or bullets no matter where you're upping from.  I think there's another way that wouldn't involve changing map physical makeup.

In WWII I would argue that the civilian sector repaired at a slower rate than military infrastructure.  How many base grabs have been ruined by the darn church etc popping while the troops are running? (Old version I know)  Let's have everything regen at the current rate except town buildings.  When a town building is down, it's down till the map changes unless resupped by a player or until strat points are spent on it. Now a small squad or even a single pilot can actually make a difference with some persistence!  When the base is captured, town ack comes up (and regens) but town buildings do not.  This would lead to a much faster style of gameplay with front lines moving much more quickly and fields being contested even more hotly than before.  This simple tweak will give us our war. But what about continuity? For that we need a War Tracker for each Tour.

 Let's say that it is prime time on day one of a new tour;  you've got LW Blue and Orange each with ~200 folks happily killing away in each.  For example, let's say the Rooks kick butt in both arenas.  They have a net gain of 12 bases in Blue and 4 in Orange over the course of the day.  Right clicking on the clipboard would get you to the War Tracker.  The War Tracker would show the Rooks as +16, Bish +2 and Knights as -18 or somesuch.  Even through map changes, the war tracker would continually compile base captures.  Fast forward 30 days and the Rook are +96, Bish +14 and Knits -110 in bases (but not in "strat points" which I'll get to.)  The Rooks won the Tour right?  Not so fast. If there's perks to be won by changing to the winning side some people would gladly change sides in a heartbeat and throw everything out of whack. To discourage such dweebery a logarithmic formula could be used to compensate for numbers.  Every time a base capture occurs, the game (using the same routing used for tracking raw data for ENY) takes a picture of the player composition in the arena at that point in time.  Let's say the Rooks grab a Knit base but they also outnumber the Knits 70 to 45.  Using the log formula I have in mind the Rooks would need to capture around 3 times the bases from the Knits as the other way around to have equal strat points. 

Now, getting back to the end of the month.  In real war, the Rooks took the most real estate hence they've won the Tour and maybe get a mention on the home page.  BUT, the Knits have been fighting tough and even though they lost a net of 110 bases during the month, it would theoretically be possible that the bases they did take provided them with more strat points than the Rook horde! 

How does this affect the average player?  When a base capture happens for a country, all players on that country receive the log-corrected number of strat points for the capture.  If the Knits capture a base from the Rooks and there are 100 Knits and 100 Rooks on the map, the Knits get 1.0 strat points.  If the Knits make a capture from the Rooks and have 45 players vice the Rooks 100, each Knits player would get 4.9 strat perk points.  [(#Rook/#Knit)^2]  Conversely, the Rooks could roll a bunch of Knit bases but would be much better off fighting for weakened Bish bases if the Bish have say, 75 players.  This gameplay mechanic would end the not-so fun "two countries ganging on the undermanned country" dynamic that happens so often. 

At the end of the month, the Knit players may have had their butts kicked around a lot, but they might have accrued the most strat points.  Why do you want strat points?  Two reasons.  Strat points can be spent one of two ways.  1.  Gifted to your less talented wingman as ftr/bomber/vehicle perks. with a 25% penalty. (You send him 20 perks, he gets 15 of them) or 2. Spending them on a damaged town.  By right clicking on a town you can select how many strat points you want to dump on it, effectively resupplying a town to speed it's regeneration it and make it more difficult to capture, a big help when you are outnumbered.

So what about the scenario where you have ten troops going to the map room and they die in the map room for no reason, thwarted by a single structure standing at the edge of town?  I say let's change that.  I say that for every 4 troops that reach the map room, a standing structure in town goes boom (with the mother Goon/M3 getting the extra perkies for a building destroyed).  Does this mean that a de-acked town could be worn down, destroyed and captured by a flotilla of Goons dropping troops?  Yes it does. And I submit that is realistic- more realistic than a batch of troops being defeated by a single building.

Last since I don't care about perk planes, but I do like winning wars and I think there are others out there like me.  I'd like to be able to transfer fighter/bomber/gv perks into strat perks. 

If you read this whole thing, congrats and thanks for your time.     

[Lusche]

With map changes occurring so frequently what incentive is there for the majority of folks to do anything but simply furball?

The same was said when the maps did hardly change: "If the war is so difficult to be won, what incentive is there to do anything but furball?"

 This gameplay mechanic would end the not-so fun "two countries ganging on the undermanned country" dynamic that happens so often.  

It would not. The ganging comes largely from current map positions, field distribution and happenstance, as well as some measure of hope for easy kills. Sometimes there is only one place you can find action at. Often you can already see one country attacking another even though those bases aren't "needed" anymore. You can take away the strategic meaning, and many player won't care. Take away perk points, and they still won't care. You can't get rid of that completely.

[The Fugitive]

The towns are easy enough to capture now, get your horde together and smash it flat. The players today don't want to "make" war, they want to "win" the war. The only way they can is the horde way, and even then it's only good untill that horde signs off. The rotating "arenas" have slowed the "win the war" down. 

[guncrasher]

When I first joined I loved logging on a couple times a day and seeing how the front lines had shifted, it was great.  Now the game has more of a big arena feel to it... a great arena mind you, but not a war. I didn't care about perks, but I liked the idea of winning a war.  I think the repetitiveness of "furballing without meaning" is the reason I've spent so much time away over the last 4 yrs. 

With map changes occurring so frequently what incentive is there for the majority of folks to do anything but simply furball? There is no continuity from map to map- any work grabbing bases goes *poof* with an arena reset.  Now I'm a big fan of furballs too don't worry.  It is sad to see a buff pilot level a town without any meaning attached to it. Buff pilot goes and lands damage, town fixes itself and there is a net of nada.  Why doesn't all this carnage have meaning??  

I think there is a way to put the WAR back in Aces High despite changing player levels and maps.  One way is by tweaking the strat system, but there would be gameplay frustrations when you log on only to find that you are limited to 25% fuel or bullets no matter where you're upping from.  I think there's another way that wouldn't involve changing map physical makeup.

In WWII I would argue that the civilian sector repaired at a slower rate than military infrastructure.  How many base grabs have been ruined by the darn church etc popping while the troops are running? (Old version I know)  Let's have everything regen at the current rate except town buildings.  When a town building is down, it's down till the map changes unless resupped by a player or until strat points are spent on it. Now a small squad or even a single pilot can actually make a difference with some persistence!  When the base is captured, town ack comes up (and regens) but town buildings do not.  This would lead to a much faster style of gameplay with front lines moving much more quickly and fields being contested even more hotly than before.  This simple tweak will give us our war. But what about continuity? For that we need a War Tracker for each Tour.

 Let's say that it is prime time on day one of a new tour;  you've got LW Blue and Orange each with ~200 folks happily killing away in each.  For example, let's say the Rooks kick butt in both arenas.  They have a net gain of 12 bases in Blue and 4 in Orange over the course of the day.  Right clicking on the clipboard would get you to the War Tracker.  The War Tracker would show the Rooks as +16, Bish +2 and Knights as -18 or somesuch.  Even through map changes, the war tracker would continually compile base captures.  Fast forward 30 days and the Rook are +96, Bish +14 and Knits -110 in bases (but not in "strat points" which I'll get to.)  The Rooks won the Tour right?  Not so fast. If there's perks to be won by changing to the winning side some people would gladly change sides in a heartbeat and throw everything out of whack. To discourage such dweebery a logarithmic formula could be used to compensate for numbers.  Every time a base capture occurs, the game (using the same routing used for tracking raw data for ENY) takes a picture of the player composition in the arena at that point in time.  Let's say the Rooks grab a Knit base but they also outnumber the Knits 70 to 45.  Using the log formula I have in mind the Rooks would need to capture around 3 times the bases from the Knits as the other way around to have equal strat points. 

Now, getting back to the end of the month.  In real war, the Rooks took the most real estate hence they've won the Tour and maybe get a mention on the home page.  BUT, the Knits have been fighting tough and even though they lost a net of 110 bases during the month, it would theoretically be possible that the bases they did take provided them with more strat points than the Rook horde! 

How does this affect the average player?  When a base capture happens for a country, all players on that country receive the log-corrected number of strat points for the capture.  If the Knits capture a base from the Rooks and there are 100 Knits and 100 Rooks on the map, the Knits get 1.0 strat points.  If the Knits make a capture from the Rooks and have 45 players vice the Rooks 100, each Knits player would get 4.9 strat perk points.  [(#Rook/#Knit)^2]  Conversely, the Rooks could roll a bunch of Knit bases but would be much better off fighting for weakened Bish bases if the Bish have say, 75 players.  This gameplay mechanic would end the not-so fun "two countries ganging on the undermanned country" dynamic that happens so often. 

At the end of the month, the Knit players may have had their butts kicked around a lot, but they might have accrued the most strat points.  Why do you want strat points?  Two reasons.  Strat points can be spent one of two ways.  1.  Gifted to your less talented wingman as ftr/bomber/vehicle perks. with a 25% penalty. (You send him 20 perks, he gets 15 of them) or 2. Spending them on a damaged town.  By right clicking on a town you can select how many strat points you want to dump on it, effectively resupplying a town to speed it's regeneration it and make it more difficult to capture, a big help when you are outnumbered.

So what about the scenario where you have ten troops going to the map room and they die in the map room for no reason, thwarted by a single structure standing at the edge of town?  I say let's change that.  I say that for every 4 troops that reach the map room, a standing structure in town goes boom (with the mother Goon/M3 getting the extra perkies for a building destroyed).  Does this mean that a de-acked town could be worn down, destroyed and captured by a flotilla of Goons dropping troops?  Yes it does. And I submit that is realistic- more realistic than a batch of troops being defeated by a single building.

Last since I don't care about perk planes, but I do like winning wars and I think there are others out there like me.  I'd like to be able to transfer fighter/bomber/gv perks into strat perks. 

If you read this whole thing, congrats and thanks for your time.     

how would you handle players that switch countries several times a day?

semp

[Letalis]

"The same was said when the maps did hardly change: "If the war is so difficult to be won, what incentive is there to do anything but furball?"

I know people used to say this. Methinks this change would make the war easier to "win" even with the rapid map changes.

"It would not. The ganging comes largely from current map positions, field distribution and happenstance, as well as some measure of hope for easy kills. Sometimes there is only one place you can find action at. Often you can already see one country attacking another even though those bases aren't "needed" anymore. You can take away the strategic meaning, and many player won't care. Take away perk points, and they still won't care. You can't get rid of that completely."

You are correct about the other factors. I made the error of speaking in bold, absolute terms and you called me on it. Your word is all but gospel when it comes to quantitative factors but I think this issue is more psychological in nature.  Someone who loves the game enough to stick with it despite a very thin strategic element will likely not see merit in said ideas. Valid. I have the newcomer and the come and go subscriber (IE: me) more in mind.  These changes will add to the game experience of said players without adversely affecting the rest of the community IMHO. I maintain that this would be a fun change with the added benefit of reduced country ganging. 

@Semp:  As posted, whenever a country captures a base, a snapshot is taken of country player ratios and the appropriate number of perks is plopped into the perk chest of a given player.  Players can still switch sides all day long if they want. Country point totals are independent of player totals. Also, if implemented, you might see more country loyalty since I'd say it would be a more rewarding experience if you stuck with the same country the entire tour but that's just me.

[iron650]

Most of the time a town was fixed before a military emplacement. The workers would leave to help their home. The Atlantic Wall was interupted because bombs hit the city and left to rebuild. Often the "unmanned country" you mentioned is often the Knights and sometimes the countries don't recognize they're ganging. Like once attacking Bishop territory the Rooks took a bishop vehicle field.

[Letalis]

Sometimes, as in the case of light damage. But in the case of contested towns (present tense) where decades of building and infrastructure were leveled in days and fighting was sustained, the populace evacuated or hid in basements.  In these cases I assure you the foxholes and AAA were up and running before the local tailor.

You are correct, currently the countries do not realize when they are ganging and there is no reason for them to care,  hence this thread. I want to replace amoeba/mob behavior, I want to look at a map and see thought in action, not just action.