Radical Idea About HOing

[SAJ73]

This... this right here is what makes me bonkers.  You are saying you let him get guns on you, and hoped he wouldn't pull the trigger.

How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Wiley.

There was a time, once upon long forgotten history that pure whiteknuckle fights were had in this game, with "nobody" shooting head on shots. As this was a contest of who would manage to get to the other guys 6 first, and these fights could drag out into many long minutes of hard fighting. So when a fight finally ended you were totally worn out both mentally and physically by hard consentration, fast thinking and a crushing grip around that stick for a longer period of time. And the adrenaline flow afterwards a fight like this can not compare to the kick one gets from just pulling the trigger and blowing up a plane head on first merge.. I find absolutely no fun in that at all, I spend my money on this game because I want to get better at the fighting part, the kill itself I don't really care much about. But offcourse there has to be a kill in there somewhere, but I like the fight to last for atleast a little while before the fun part is over. 

[danny76]

There was a time, once upon long forgotten history that pure whiteknuckle fights were had in this game, with "nobody" shooting head on shots. As this was a contest of who would manage to get to the other guys 6 first, and these fights could drag out into many long minutes of hard fighting. So when a fight finally ended you were totally worn out both mentally and physically by hard consentration, fast thinking and a crushing grip around that stick for a longer period of time. And the adrenaline flow afterwards a fight like this can not compare to the kick one gets from just pulling the trigger and blowing up a plane head on first merge.. I find absolutely no fun in that at all, I spend my money on this game because I want to get better at the fighting part, the kill itself I don't really care much about. But offcourse there has to be a kill in there somewhere, but I like the fight to last for atleast a little while before the fun part is over. 

^ Oh Yes

[Wiley]

Well, it is 

Well, according to people in this thread as long as my nose is pointing vaguely in his general direction when he gets guns onto me, he's less skilled and a Bad Person(tm) for shooting me as I fly through his gun sight.  My simple question is, how is it not my failure to avoid him?

There was a time, once upon long forgotten history that pure whiteknuckle fights were had in this game, with "nobody" shooting head on shots. As this was a contest of who would manage to get to the other guys 6 first, and these fights could drag out into many long minutes of hard fighting. So when a fight finally ended you were totally worn out both mentally and physically by hard consentration, fast thinking and a crushing grip around that stick for a longer period of time. And the adrenaline flow afterwards a fight like this can not compare to the kick one gets from just pulling the trigger and blowing up a plane head on first merge.. I find absolutely no fun in that at all, I spend my money on this game because I want to get better at the fighting part, the kill itself I don't really care much about. But offcourse there has to be a kill in there somewhere, but I like the fight to last for atleast a little while before the fun part is over.  

...and all of that depends on you being allowed to fly through his gunsight at the beginning?

Wiley.

[SAJ73]

...and all of that depends on you being allowed to fly through his gunsight at the beginning?

Wiley.

Not sure that I follow you now wiley?
There are ALOT of people in the MA, and you very seldom know who you are up against. But sometimes you can have a vague idea or you just think you know who you are up against, based on flying style or whatever. Some rare times I have caught myself in trying to go for a perfect merge just to find out that it was the wrong guy. This one pulled the trigger, ok my bad.
But once in a while you CAN still find that pilot that has the same mindset and you can get one helluva fight out of it.
I don't see the problem with me gambling my cartoon life, because alot of the time I find it boring to just fly around never risking anything because I might get killed.
But there are days I fly with my mind set on survival also, but that is not my general rule in this game. My general rule in this game is FUN!
The day I can't have fun here anymore I will stop my payment and close my account.

[Wiley]

Not sure that I follow you now wiley?
There are ALOT of people in the MA, and you very seldom know who you are up against. But sometimes you can have a vague idea or you just think you know who you are up against, based on flying style or whatever. Some rare times I have caught myself in trying to go for a perfect merge just to find out that it was the wrong guy. This one pulled the trigger, ok my bad.
But once in a while you CAN still find that pilot that has the same mindset and you can get one helluva fight out of it.
I don't see the problem with me gambling my cartoon life, because alot of the time I find it boring to just fly around never risking anything because I might get killed.
But there are days I fly with my mind set on survival also, but that is not my general rule in this game. My general rule in this game is FUN!
The day I can't have fun here anymore I will stop my payment and close my account.

It seems to me to be what people are saying is, if their enemy doesn't do a guns-cold merge, it's impossible to have a good fight.  What I'm saying is, it's your responsibility not to get shot by the bandit.  EDIT:  Sorry, just figured out a clearer way to phrase it:  Why on earth do you not set up on the merge to avoid the HO, so you don't NEED to worry about whether he's going to shoot or not, because it doesn't matter if he tries.

Regardless of what direction your nose happens to be pointing, if the guy puts his guns on you, he's won the fight.

Wiley.

[MK-84]

Over the years I've read countless threads about HOing and even participated in a few. There's hardly been a single session I've flown when someone or other isn't typing 'nice HO' or 'you Hoing b**tard' etc. None of these threads and not one of these complaints has ever put and end to HOing (note: we can't say it doesn't reduce it because the cultural pressure is continuous).

In Aces High it's almost become synomomous with swearing, it's not acceptable but there's an awful lot of it going about. I've seen more bitter complaints and more discord amongst players over the HO than any other aspect of gameplay, so a weird thought occured to me: what if we as a community stopped complaining about the HO and accepted it instead.

Now bear with me here. I'm suggesting we include and embrace the HO as part of acceptable fighting. I mean a shot from and into any aspect. No discussion of both or only one party having a shot, no debate over angles of deflection, simply give your oppoenent a guns solution - any solution - and get shot.

So now the expectation changes, instead of expecting NOT to get HOed out of the anticipation of sporting behaviour we expect TO GET HOed every time. Those that have been objecting to HOing on the grounds it is unskillful now have the responsibility to learn how to avoid it and can't complain if they get brought down. Thus this hole in the skill set of those who want a good, fair or skillful fight becomes filled.

Those that HO presently do not gain anything nor lose anything save the end of negative comments (which they apparently don't care about anyway).

For those that dislike getting HOed the burden of responsibility shifts onto temselves instead of expected behaviour from another player which I think we can all agree is only a recipe for dissapointment, annoyance and discord. In AH culture the HO is the only circumstance in a 1 on 1 fight where your safety is not your own responsibility but that of your opponent. This is illogical and unrealistic in the context of this combative virtual environment.


Employing the same 'persuasion by negative comments' approach which is demonstrably not working over and over year in, year out is the definition of futility. How about a paradigm shift instead?

I'll support this idea

[SAJ73]

It seems to me to be what people are saying is, if their enemy doesn't do a guns-cold merge, it's impossible to have a good fight.  What I'm saying is, it's your responsibility not to get shot by the bandit.  If you set up on the merge to avoid the HO, you don't NEED to worry about whether he's going to shoot or not, because it doesn't matter if he tries.

Regardless of what direction your nose happens to be pointing, if the guy puts his guns on you, he's won the fight.

Wiley.

Yes, now I follow. And I do agree, it is my responsibility to stay alive and avoid the ho shots. And most of the time nowadays I fly like that, it has become like that over the years as hoing has become more and more usual. Hoing is a part of the game, so I have to make sure I don't get killed by every plane turning my way. I just miss those days when a fight could be had on equal terms and cold guns on the merge, and once in a while I still find pilots that fly like myself. Then I can gladly up sortie after sortie figthing the same guy even if I am in MA and he kills me time after time. If the fights are on equal terms and there are no ho's I don't care about my score or cartoon life, all I care about is the fun in the fights.  

[Wiley]

Yes, now I follow. And I do agree, it is my responsibility to stay alive and avoid the ho shots. And most of the time nowadays I fly like that, it has become like that over the years as hoing has become more and more usual. Hoing is a part of the game, so I have to make sure I don't get killed by every plane turning my way. I just miss those days when a fight could be had on equal terms and cold guns on the merge, and once in a while I still find pilots that fly like myself. Then I can gladly up sortie after sortie figthing the same guy even if I am in MA and he kills me time after time. If the fights are on equal terms and there are no ho's I don't care about my score or cartoon life, all I care about is the fun in the fights.  

I just don't see what it takes away from the fight, assuming the other guy actually stays to fight, if you merge as though he's going to take a shot.

Wiley.

[Oldman731]

I just don't see what it takes away from the fight, assuming the other guy actually stays to fight, if you merge as though he's going to take a shot.

On the merge itself it probably doesn't make a difference; you simply enter the fight from different positions.  I think the underlying objection to HOs is that they terminate the fight much sooner than if both pilots strive to get the kill with a more difficult shot.  It's an attitude thing, contrasted between those who view this as a sport and those who view it as a sim.  Neither side has any particular claim to moral superiority, as Skyyr might put it, but we sporter-types would just prefer longer and more difficult fights.

- oldman

[SAJ73]

It ruins the merge sort of, if you have to make precautions to avoid ho shots. It might be that slight disadvantage that will make you blow your E to stay in the safe zone or puts you off your ideal flightpath rather than just be full on aggressive through the merge knowing it is safe and the fight starts when the planes 3/9 line cross.
There is often a contest of who gets lowest, the lowest plane starting his climb first on the merge usually has an slight advantage. And that can often be a chicken-contest of who dares to fly lowest to the ground if the fight starts at a low alt from the beginning. And it is exciting and fun to fight like this, two equal pilots in equal planes can fly like a mirroring of eachother for several turns before one might make a slight mistake that gives away his victory. That's what I am talking about, that is magic moments that don't happen much anymore.
Not saying that the MA is the right arena for this kind of fights, that is the DA. But still, I think it adds to the MA that there are still a few pilots around that want to fight rather than kill everything head on..

[Wiley]

It ruins the merge sort of, if you have to make precautions to avoid ho shots. It might be that slight disadvantage that will make you blow your E to stay in the safe zone or puts you off your ideal flightpath rather than just be full on aggressive through the merge knowing it is safe and the fight starts when the planes 3/9 line cross.

To me, that's part of the fight.

Wiley.

[Drane]

Have discovered that many "top" pilots will resort to HOing when they can't gain the upper hand.

So when they complain I just chuckle to myself and fly on.

[The Fugitive]

Yes, now I follow. And I do agree, it is my responsibility to stay alive and avoid the ho shots. And most of the time nowadays I fly like that, it has become like that over the years as hoing has become more and more usual. Hoing is a part of the game, so I have to make sure I don't get killed by every plane turning my way. I just miss those days when a fight could be had on equal terms and cold guns on the merge, and once in a while I still find pilots that fly like myself. Then I can gladly up sortie after sortie figthing the same guy even if I am in MA and he kills me time after time. If the fights are on equal terms and there are no ho's I don't care about my score or cartoon life, all I care about is the fun in the fights.  

On the merge itself it probably doesn't make a difference; you simply enter the fight from different positions.  I think the underlying objection to HOs is that they terminate the fight much sooner than if both pilots strive to get the kill with a more difficult shot.  It's an attitude thing, contrasted between those who view this as a sport and those who view it as a sim.  Neither side has any particular claim to moral superiority, as Skyyr might put it, but we sporter-types would just prefer longer and more difficult fights.

- oldman

I agree 100%

The issue as I see it is "in the old days" when you merged BOTH players were looking to set up a good merge to get ahead of the other player. This led to very few strait head on merges as BOTH were looking for an angle. Today most players....even the top tier players go for the HO. Mostly I think because you expect the other player to go for the HO so your move is to get in tight and be 15-25 % of the way through your next more. "IF" you survive the HO attempt you have now put the other guy in a very bad spot.


The other option is to use bigger vertical moves to stay just out of range of a good guns solution for the other guy and force him to burn his E and THEN pounce on him for the kill. The problem with that is while you are draining him 3 buddies come in a clear your 12 for you 

So for a "fighter" type guy you have to dive in there and go for broke right from the start, other wise you lose out on a fight. Of course even then half of those just dive away after missing the HO anyway.

[Randy1]

I agree 100%

The issue as I see it is "in the old days" . . .

In the old days, was there as many high performance plane options as there is today? The Ks, the La7s, the yaks, the Spit16 and the 190s kind of planes.  Could more late war HP planes lead to more HOs?

I may be wrong on this but it seems like the most that say its so easy to avoid HOs fly planes like the K or La7.  I know when I fly the Ki, I can doggone just about avoid any type of attack but even the 47M when slow has few options to a closing super plane. 

I know someone is going to say just don't get slow, but mistakes are made or situation chances quickly.  An M flys well slow but doesn't change states quickly like a Ki.  A Ki when slow is a dangerous plane to mess with, no matter what because the power and weight give me more options than the larger 47M.  A slow D11's lighter weight gives me more options than a slow, heavier, M.

[mechanic]

rule one to not being annoyed by HOs: When you're down and dirty with flaps out and you spot an enemy plane coming in for a shot, do not consider simply pulling nose on and hoping they wont fire as a solution.