System generated free form missions (quests)

[james]

Dueling Arena - and you want to do something in under a hour? FSO!! And a certain plane set? AvA!!

 

If the AVA had a setup like all allied planes availiable vs all axis i'd be in there. Not a week to week thing either. OOOOH wait there's no axis troop transport for the air so there's a hole in that set up. Nevermind.

[Karnak]

If the AVA had a setup like all allied planes availiable vs all axis i'd be in there. Not a week to week thing either. OOOOH wait there's no axis troop transport for the air so there's a hole in that set up. Nevermind.

No, the C-47 works for that.  The Japanese built hundreds of L2D 'Tabby' transport aircraft.

[The Fugitive]

I'm FOR anything that promotes combat. The only problem I see with this is would enough people join up to make the missions achievable? If only a few people try for the "Capture A1" mission they can pound on it for an hour and never get everything together enough to make a capture, so the "defend A1" mission would be an easy success.

[Karnak]

I'm FOR anything that promotes combat. The only problem I see with this is would enough people join up to make the missions achievable? If only a few people try for the "Capture A1" mission they can pound on it for an hour and never get everything together enough to make a capture, so the "defend A1" mission would be an easy success.

That would be something to use the carrot to encourage, if players persistently don't participate in adequate numbers, then the rewards can be raised, and the reward for the harder task can be larger.  Obviously, participation is not always assured.  World of Warcraft has a much, much larger player base even on a per server basis, and I can recall times in Wintersgrasp where the Horde just didn't show up.  Nothing can be done about such things as they fall to the players.

[jimson]

Even if it's successful only some of the time, it might still be worthwhile.

[james]

+10 this would also make a very good "cut your teeth" training tool in alot of ways.

[caldera]

I was talking to a friend and one of the things he didn't like about Aces High (he subscribed for about three months back in 2001) was the difficulty in finding a fight.  I was thinking about another MMO we play, World of Warcraft (sue me, but that is the one my RL friends play), and I thought that perhaps the daily quest idea could be transposed to Aces High.  They would not be structured like a player generated mission, but rather free form, bring your own tools and meet the requirement to get the reward.  The reward could be some score bonus, perk bonus or both, but nothing so high as to require participation by those disinclined.

The way I envision this would be system generated "quest" missions every one or two hours, whatever is balanced.  There would be a equal number of missions for each nation.  For example:

Bishops: Take A1 (Take field A1 from the Rooks within 1 hour)
Bishops: Defend A2 (Prevent the Rooks from taking field A2 for an hour)
Bishops: Take A3 (Take field A3 from the Knights within 1 hour)
Bishops: Defend A4 (Prevent the Knights from taking field A4 for an hour)
Bishops: Attack Rook City (Bomb Rook city to below 25% within one hour {could even stipulate that the bombs had to be dropped from above 15,000ft or so})
Bishops: Defend Bishop City (Prevent the Knights from reducing Bishop City below 25% for an hour)

Knights: Take A5 (Take field A5 from the Rooks within 1 hour)
Knights: Defend A6 (Prevent the Rooks from taking field A6 for an hour)
Knights: Take A4 (Take field A4 from the Bishops within 1 hour)
Knights: Defend A3 (Prevent the Bishops from taking field A3 for an hour)
Knights: Attack Bishop City (Bomb Bishop City to below 25% within one hour {could even stipulate that the bombs had to be dropped from above 15,000ft or so})
Knights: Defend Knight City (Prevent the Rooks from reducing Knight City below 25% for an hour)

Rooks: Take A2 (Take field A2 from the Bishops within 1 hour)
Rooks: Defend A1 (Prevent the Bishops from taking field A1 for an hour)
Rooks: Take A6 (Take field A6 from the Knights within 1 hour)
Rooks: Defend A5 (Prevent the Knights from taking field A5 for an hour)
Rooks: Attack Knight City (Bomb Knight city to below 25% within one hour {could even stipulate that the bombs had to be dropped from above 15,000ft or so})
Rooks: Defend Rook City (Prevent the Bishops from reducing Knight City below 25% for an hour)


As you can see, these mission quests are all pointed at another mission quest to encourage combat.

How would it work in gameplay?  While in the tower you would accept the mission you wanted to do, for example as a Bishop you could take "Take A1 (Take field A1 from the Rooks within 1 hour)".  Once the Mission Quest timer began (there might be a clock counting down to the mission start and then counting up until the time ran out) you would launch as normal, selecting your airplane or vehicle, and heading off for A1 to participate in the Bishop attempt to take it.  There would be no mass launching by the computer as in a player generated mission.  To determine if you were eligible for completing the Mission Quest and getting the score/perk reward the program would need to do a few spot checks to make sure you were participating in A1's sector and inflicting damage on A1 or A1's defenders.


The goal of this idea is not to mandate new behavior for all players, but rather to encourage a meeting of opposing forces to fight it out for something.  Players would be free to participate or not even without accepting the Mission Quest.  They would be free to use whatever airplane, vehicle or boat they wanted in order to participate, though a tank might well fail to score a City defense mission due to not damaging the attackers.  There should not be too many Mission Quests per iteration as it wouldn't be good to dilute the players interested in participating too much.

Concern:
A mechanism needs to be in place to discourage hordes.  This could be done via the ENY system reducing the rewards based on side balance, enough of an imbalance and the rewards would be zeroed out.

+1  A nice idea, but not sure how a player could be confirmed to be helping towards the objective.

[Karnak]

+1  A nice idea, but not sure how a player could be confirmed to be helping towards the objective.

Damaging a building of the appropriate type or player within the mission area.  Defenders could hot troop or ordnance bunkers at bases near the target base for example, or just shoot down attackers or the reward could simply be a percentage of the perks you earned within the mission area while the mission was active.

[Fox]

Perhaps there could be a dynamic fill mechanism to prevent either the attack or defense mission from having a large difference in participation.  Maybe each starts at 5 people, for example, and doesn't increase until the opposing mission fills up to a certain point.

[Karnak]

Perhaps there could be a dynamic fill mechanism to prevent either the attack or defense mission from having a large difference in participation.  Maybe each starts at 5 people, for example, and doesn't increase until the opposing mission fills up to a certain point.

That could be done by only having it selectable when doing so would not throw the balance off.  The free form aspect is important though, so I strongly wouldn't want to see it go to something like player generated missions where you have to just sit in the tower and wait until you all spawn on the runway.

I think I prefer having it governed by simply reducing the reward more and more for the side with numbers as their numbers grow.

[The Fugitive]

+1  A nice idea, but not sure how a player could be confirmed to be helping towards the objective.

The player would have to "join" the mission, and then have some "damage" at the site of the mission

adding a .5 multiplier to the points/perks a person earns for the Mission flight might be enough of a "carrot" to get people to participate even if the mission isn't completed. Say double the multiplier for a completed mission.

That could be done by only having it selectable when doing so would not throw the balance off.  The free form aspect is important though, so I strongly wouldn't want to see it go to something like player generated missions where you have to just sit in the tower and wait until you all spawn on the runway.

I think I prefer having it governed by simply reducing the reward more and more for the side with numbers as their numbers grow.

The sound suspiciously like your "taking something away" if they don't play it the way you want there Karnak  

[Karnak]

The sound suspiciously like your "taking something away" if they don't play it the way you want there Karnak  

What would it be taking away?  When I said that in your thread you were talking about taking away existing things, such as the ability for bombers to drop bombs below a certain altitude, or at least their ability to get score or perks for bombs dropped below a certain altitude.

When discussing the mechanics of a new feature adjustments to it will happen and that is not at all the same thing.

[The Fugitive]

What would it be taking away?  When I said that in your thread you were talking about taking away existing things, such as the ability for bombers to drop bombs below a certain altitude, or at least their ability to get score or perks for bombs dropped below a certain altitude.

When discussing the mechanics of a new feature adjustments to it will happen and that is not at all the same thing.

I'm just teasing you, thats why the little "noid" was in there. 

[Vapor]

+1. Seems interesting and worthwhile to explore. It would be nice to have some better country level coordination. Large combat engagement with air, naval,  and GV's are really fun but only if a coordinated defense is brought to bear...and that just doesn't happen most times, but when it does I really enjoy the fights!!  Salute all.   

[EVZ]

What would it be taking away? 

It wouldn't be taking anything away ... I'd suggest a fixed # of reward points to be divided between all participants and a Target reward to be added for killing specific targets. That way the reward would diminsh as participants increased, but attack motivation would be maintained.