The base capture should be the "end game" of that action. The mission is the challenge you work through to get there. The same as a dog fight. The kill is the end game, the maneuvering for that kill shot while avoiding the other guys kill shot is the challenge there.
What the players have done is looked for the quickest, easiest way to get the "end game". They don't bother with the journey to get there and so are not interested in the challenge.
The problem is, everything you describe below requires effort, planning, and execution. When you've got the herd of cats who are drunk or whatever, or just plain aren't that good at the game, why would you do something like the below when you can have a far less chance of failure hording up and smashing the base?
The thing I really don't get is the amount of people who get bent out of shape if their mission runs into opposition. It's like they feel they should be able to up a mission without considering the possibility of having to defend the heavies.
I know what is involved in running a good mission with multiple prongs. There is the time to build and plan the mission, the time to lead the mission by assigning objectives and making sure everyone not only has a roll, but understands and can carry out that roll. If not they will need back up and this must be taken into account. Add in your "guessing" as to what kind of defense your heading into and must make changes on the fly to account for guessing wrong. Your hoping for defense as an attack with out one gets pretty boring. For our missions, more often than not I flew a buff or back up goon, and spent most of my time giving instruction as we flew. While running the missions was fun, as a fighter guy I was missing out on a lot of fighter sorties and that is ultimately why I stopped running missions.
I like to play defense too. Missions are pretty boring as everyone does the same thing all the time. It's a player issue. HTC has given us all the tools to play this game many ways. It's too bad most have settled on only just one or two of those ways to play.
Agreed.
The sad thing is, I could see Bustr's suggestion working with a simple script. Have the script choose an enemy field near the front. Put in room for 30 P51's, 30 P47's and 30 P38's, all heavy, 5 goon slots, and 10 B17 and B24 slots. Put up mission. Have it launch at a prescribed time, or if nobody goes in in time, once it's got say, 10 of each fighter and a goon.
Have the script put up multiple missions, one for each enemy base on the front. For each base take, perks for all in the mission.
I could see that working, and it depresses the living hell out of me.
Wiley.