Snailman's scary graph

[Lusche]

Maybe we need an intermediate arena.  EW and MW are hardly used, but an arena for 2 weekers and newbs in general might be popular.  With 80% of the players sharing only 26% of the kills you've got to wonder what HiTech's retention rate is for new players.  Maybe an intermediate arena with actual gameplay would help newer players transition into the game and be more likely to stay.

I don't think this could work.

First, who's going to play there? Only "new" players? How are they going to learn? Who's showing them the gameplay? And if they could still join the "regular" MA, they would mostly ignore the "newb arena", because (almost) everybody wants to play were almost everybody else is. If they couldn't join the regular MA, they wouldn't really see what AH can be about, being limited to an arena full of players with zero experience.
Furthermore, when there are less than 100 players on in total for quite a part of the day, further splitting them up is hardly a good idea.

[5PointOh]

I was thinking of a tiered platform of some sort (Yes I know its from WoT).  It would show newer players as low teirs and seasoned players as high tiered.  Bonus perks for killing higher tiered players.  Oh oh wait, we actually kind of have that with planes, and then higher tiered players would have a constant target on them. grrr back to the drawing board...

[Rich46yo]

I dont think we've ever "ate our young". Yeah we have called them squeekers on occasion , yes weve chastised them for babbling on the vox on occasion, but overall the AH community has supported them. The young just never had a big interest in WW2 flight, or WW1 for that matter. You see it in other games in the genre as well, most of all on the PC.

[Bruv119]

just enjoy it whilst it lasts.  Would hate to see numbers get so low that it makes WT 32 player battles look exciting.  

What we need are sure fire ways to increase take up, maybe tiered subscription levels that won't leave HTC out of pocket but would give outsiders a way in to get seriously hooked.

I'm thinking non MA rooms at a cheaper price or make the TA / DA / WW1 completely free.   This way when they do dare enter the lions den that is the MA they will be a little prepared for battle.  Just like the real thing.   As for those pesky freeloaders just make sure they are in self contained areas where they cannot annoy or destroy the existing setups.  

Maybe If you earned some sort of credible flying in the above rooms,  look at I-racing's safety point system to prevent griefers from driving into people etc then they get some really high ENY planes.   Once they lose them then back to the romper room unless they cough up.  

[zack1234]

Gibberish! and you know it

Like the two tiers in The Few when i was in it Gibberish!

I have more money than you as well I am am a idiot

[The Fury]

I see the help channel ingame isn't used that much by experienced players I have it tuned all the time and try to answer questions whenever possible. Maybe that's a place to start it would be nice if we had a squad that trained new players like in Eve online there is a corperation (guild/squad) that you can join even on day one they will show you most things you need to know about the game.

[zack1234]

To many egos involved to be off any use

Do as I say not as I do attitude

Shame really

[Bruv119]

zack when your zooming around in your typhoon with no-one to kill what will you do? and who will you talk too?  

so unless your posting constructive ideas or some sort of anecdotal evidence of player numbers when you get online you are adding no value to this thread.  Hence Shida's quite appropriate thread about the decline of the forum of which you are around 10% to blame.

[zack1234]

Your to blame for your elitist arrogant suggestions that new players are not fit to fly in the same arena as you!

Its a game for gods sake not a competition

[Bruv119]

maybe you misread my post,

new players need somewhere to learn if they pay 15$ upfront just to get killed over and over why would they continue to subscribe?  with free to play rooms elsewhere they can build up their skills without being soul crushed by people like you who can afford to play and only log minimal hours.

oh and thanks for the insult.

[zack1234]

I apologize for non intended insult

This is type of game is for a limited type of person who is interested in this era of flying

You are not going to get the numbers based on this fact

Rise Of Flight is now moving on to STEAM and this will cause people to scream its not a sim its a console game

[Bruv119]

enough new blood to stop the decline or death is what we need.

Most online games are now free to play and that has to be 80% of the reason why they have so many players.  I think populating rooms that aren't even utilised by the paying majority is a good idea.   Whilst keeping the core product where everyone wants to fight and the SEA arenas for subscribers.

[The Fury]

Must admit when we used to have them free arenas it kept me around for a while until I felt good enough to sub for the mains.

[zack1234]

Being nicer to noobs is probably a better for game.

The amount of people who abuse them by saying go to to training arena and keep away from our game is appalling

[Citabria]

They should advertise more on anything related to WW2 combat or aviation perhaps. People that fly airplanes usually wanted to fly fighter planes before they got stuck driving an air taxi or a skybus.

I may be in the minority view here but it seems to me like AH has more people in it now than it did a year ago. one thing I've noticed though is the numbers of kills being landed is often 2-3 instead of 5-10 like it used to be and the frequency of landed kills in the text bar is way down in landed kills but the bomber sorties are showing up a lot. Personally I never have trouble finding a good gv fight or furball in the LWMA and even midwar has been having some really excellent action with around 20-30 players in it. EW and WW1 are pretty much not in the realm of active arenas.

So riddle me this...

This sudden drop in kills. it started about the time achievements were added to the game that encouraged players to man the bombers? if  large portion of the ah population is now spending time climbing to altitude in bombers you have a big chunk of misleading data that does not show what is actually going on. Achievements were added at the beginning of the year in what Feb? I know I am flying bombers a lot. and when I am I might get 1-3 kills in that 1.5 hrs I spent getting to alt driving 200 miles to the enemy city and rtb back to base while in a fighter or GV i would have had about 10 sorties and 20-30 kills in that time.