Historical airfield limitations

[Traveler]

I would like to add that if you are looking for more of an historical feel then events may be more to your liking. 

no I prefer to fly with my squad and we fly in the MA.

[ink]

no...Aces High is NOT WW2...Aces High is not trying replicate WW2....

seems pretty simple...


I got on idea....you want to play a WW2 game....go play WW2 online....stop trying to change Aces High into a WW2 game.





THAT'S a reply that isn't open for discussion.

[Arlo]

No, it appears that you don't get it.  any player can select any aircraft  the same way they do now and right now, each side is limited   for the three sides to 600 in the arena,   Not sure why you are locked in on 780,   what I said was that for a small map if each field was limited to 30 aircraft being able to launch from that field, with 26 fields on a small map that would b 780 aircraft, they could all be 262's if the players wanted all to select 262.   why you think they are limited to a storch tells me that you don't understand.  and I still don't see in his first reply where he discussed the concept.  Yes, it's new, it's different then the way it's been, perhaps that might help, because clearly for many the way it is , isn't working.  We are losing players.  Just trying to help,  buy suggesting something new.

780 was your estimate of player limitation. Regarding the Storch ... whether it's that or a 262 ...
all the other fields are at capacity. Player 780 is now stuck at the rear-most field. Player 200 is
stuck at a field closer but still out of the fight. Both players (and possibly all between) are not
happy (and it's due to a game programming limitation). My opinion (as well as some others, it
seems) is that any idea that involves limiting players (short of perks to keep over-population
of uber-rides down) is not really a good one. Even with airfield 'wait-listing' you are basically
keeping a player (or several players) out of the fight until their number comes up (and by then,
well, the fight's probably over).

If your idea is to keep player population down to 60 per side or less ... then it would accomplish
exactly that.

[Arlo]

no I prefer to fly with my squad and we fly in the MA.

Then I suggest not fixating on history or limitations.

P.S. There are squads that do both. 

[Tracerfi]

Not a good idea even though i the idea it will only cause problems

[bustr]

Arlo,

Seems more like the limitations of WT and IL2 to create that ww2 style immersion between co equal matched sides. Problem is, how we fight is closer to the real war than WT or IL2, which are really giving you ww2 props and stages on which to perform 32 max a side squad duels. HTC provides that opportunity freely if the OP and supporters want to go to the DA, custom arena, AvA or FSO, Snap Shots and Special Events.

Hitech has given them everything short of his social security number to keep them happy.

The first time HTC looks like they are trying to duplicate the game play mechanics of either WT or IL2 in their signature arena the MA, HTC will become a laughing stock and go out of business. HTC's unique position in the industry is it's no rules, unlimited game play, 24x7 Main Arena. The current low MA numbers is more related to subsequent world economic events from the housing bubble crash than anything else.

Everyone is always free to talk to the AvA CM's about ideas like this to try and add to the WW2 style immersion value of the AvA. And makes a good beta test for how players might respond if it were ported to the MA. I think over the last decade Hitech has ported a few of the CT\AvA ideas to the MA. Who da thunk it no one at HTC ever thought: If you limit access to rides, you could force players to queue up around the map. And gratefully up from other bases farther away and have lots of gentile little fights all over the map. How IL2 and WT ish of a concept.

Every body with a goose down pillow thinks that qualifies them to tell Hitech how to care for his golden goose, when he's the only goose farmer in the discussion. But, hey, they slept on a goose down pillow last night. Or flew IL2 or WT and came back here thinking AH would become The flight simm utopia of simms if Hitech would just......................... ...

Arlo how long have you and I been watching this repeat itself now??

[pembquist]

Bustr is right. One of the important things that makes AH unique is that there is nothing to speak of between players and all resources of the game. I think it is a mistake to monkey with it more than the eny thing. There are several other arenas that are not as popular as LW and I think if you put up a LW restricted aircraft per field alongside the LW as is you would see a marked preference for the latter.

[Karnak]

I still like my idea of a method to add combat to the game without taking anything away from players who want to keep doing what they are doing.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,325800.0.html

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.

[Arlo]

Arlo how long have you and I been watching this repeat itself now??

Ask me again in another 10 years. 

[Traveler]

780 was your estimate of player limitation. Regarding the Storch ... whether it's that or a 262 ...
all the other fields are at capacity. Player 780 is now stuck at the rear-most field. Player 200 is
stuck at a field closer but still out of the fight. Both players (and possibly all between) are not
happy (and it's due to a game programming limitation). My opinion (as well as some others, it
seems) is that any idea that involves limiting players (short of perks to keep over-population
of uber-rides down) is not really a good one. Even with airfield 'wait-listing' you are basically
keeping a player (or several players) out of the fight until their number comes up (and by then,
well, the fight's probably over).

If your idea is to keep player population down to 60 per side or less ... then it would accomplish
exactly that.

no, you still don't get it, You keep talking about player 780, HTC already has a limitation , player 600 through 780 never get into the game.  right now there is a limitation of a total of 600 players that could be 599 Bish and one rook with no knights or how ever you want to break it down.   My example demonstrates that even at max that there are enough aircraft for the players choice available, No limitations on aircraft.   There would be no one that couldn't fly their ride.   My only wish is and it's a wish that this World War II combat flight sim be more true to actual WWII combat.  And yes, if there are field departure limitations some people would have to fly from rear area fields.  Just like they did in WWII.  I never played WT or IL2 my only experience is AW and from AW to AH.

[Karnak]

And yes, if there are field departure limitations some people would have to fly from rear area fields.

You are free to add 10 minutes to your time to reach the fight if you like, but forcing others to do so isn't acceptable.  Most of us are here for the fight, not the flight to the fight and making us spend more getting to the fight is just making us waste our time.

[Traveler]

no...Aces High is NOT WW2...Aces High is not trying replicate WW2....

seems pretty simple...

I got on idea....you want to play a WW2 game....go play WW2 online....stop trying to change Aces High into a WW2 game.

THAT'S a reply that isn't open for discussion.

HTC would disagree with you, look at their welcome page, according to them, Aces High is "the best WWII and WWI combat experience on line."

[hitech]

No, it appears that you don't get it.  any player can select any aircraft  the same way they do now and right now, each side is limited   for the three sides to 600 in the arena,   Not sure why you are locked in on 780,   what I said was that for a small map if each field was limited to 30 aircraft being able to launch from that field, with 26 fields on a small map that would b 780 aircraft, they could all be 262's if the players wanted all to select 262.   why you think they are limited to a storch tells me that you don't understand.  and I still don't see in his first reply where he discussed the concept.  Yes, it's new, it's different then the way it's been, perhaps that might help, because clearly for many the way it is , isn't working.  We are losing players.  Just trying to help,  buy suggesting something new.

Appreciate the suggest, but traveler you keep stating what you "WISH" with out thinking of all the moving parts of what you wish. You stated a simple example, what happens when the country started with 26 fields but now is down to 13.  What happens when one side ups from 3 fields with 78 planes to go attack another, but now the field being attacked can only up 26 planes. Your goal is to "Reduce" the horde, but you have not shown in any way that it would really do that. What happens when I plane a mission for 26 planes from a field, and just before we launch 2 planers take off from the field.  How much knashing of teach to fellow country men will there be when 10 players are driving a long tank mission for a suprise attack and another squad wants to fly from the same field.

Traveler, you are doing a very natural thing, you view your idea from what you want to happen. But you have not stated or given a lot of thought to how you would react to the system when you can not fly from a field your friends are flying from. You are telling the story/idea only from a perspective how it will effect /limit everyone else, and not the way it could detrimentally effect you. You are thinking all tactics will stay as they currently are, and that people will not find ways to work around your limitations.

There are a few know strategies  about battle, first if your goal is to win, it is best to hit them where they aint.
2nd if you can't hit them where they ain't have over whelming superiority.

While these ideas win battles they do not always produce the most fun in a game. But when ever one try to limit the stated strategies ,one must put a lot of thought into how the posted strategies will be used in the new system. Because the strategies will not go away, they will merely adapt to the new system

also

no...Aces High is NOT WW2...Aces High is not trying replicate WW2....

is exactly what aces high main arena play does, it tries to accurately produce a simulation of WWII equipment. And does not try to simulate wwii. WWII was already been fought. We simply make a game that use wwii equipment.

As I have stated many times. A game is meant to be fun and fair, war is neither.


HiTech

[Traveler]

Appreciate the suggest, but traveler you keep stating what you "WISH" with out thinking of all the moving parts of what you wish. You stated a simple example, what happens when the country started with 26 fields but now is down to 13.  What happens when one side ups from 3 fields with 78 planes to go attack another, but now the field being attacked can only up 26 planes. Your goal is to "Reduce" the horde, but you have not shown in any way that it would really do that. What happens when I plane a mission for 26 planes from a field, and just before we launch 2 planers take off from the field.  How much knashing of teach to fellow country men will there be when 10 players are driving a long tank mission for a suprise attack and another squad wants to fly from the same field.

Traveler, you are doing a very natural thing, you view your idea from what you want to happen. But you have not stated or given a lot of thought to how you would react to the system when you can not fly from a field your friends are flying from. You are telling the story/idea only from a perspective how it will effect /limit everyone else, and not the way it could detrimentally effect you. You are thinking all tactics will stay as they currently are, and that people will not find ways to work around your limitations.

There are a few know strategies  about battle, first if your goal is to win, it is best to hit them where they aint.
2nd if you can't hit them where they ain't have over whelming superiority.

While these ideas win battles they do not always produce the most fun in a game. But when ever one try to limit the stated strategies ,one must put a lot of thought into how the posted strategies will be used in the new system. Because the strategies will not go away, they will merely adapt to the new system

also is exactly what aces high main arena play does, it tries to accurately produce a simulation of WWII equipment. And does not try to simulate wwii. WWII was already been fought. We simply make a game that use wwii equipment.

As I have stated many times. A game is meant to be fun and fair, war is neither.


HiTech

Hitech, you are right, I only made the wish and offered it up for discussions.   I didn't realize that I had to be not only the customer making a wish but also a game designer and was responsible for total develop of all aspects of the wish.  I haven't see that request stated for any of the wishes that I've ever read on this BBS.   If you want me to do a deep dive and complete every detail of the necessary design covering all aspects of my suggestion  I'd be happy to do that, I'd also expect to be compensated for any part of that design that HTC chose to use.  Let me if you want me to get started.   

[Rino]

     So by forcing players to use fields farther from the fight in order to fly, you improve the player
base how exactly?  Other than letting the cosmonauts grab yet a little more alt of course.