What would you think of the proposed gameplay changes for main arena? This comes from the fact, that some people consider AH in current state to be 'air quake arena' due to the fact that there are non real life maps and all planes are available on all sides and this potentialy drives them away from playing the game.
The proposed gameplay changes would do the following: bring a level of historical accuracy to the game, delete the 'air quake arena' status which some consider the game to be for kids only, along with steam this could potentialy bring further even more players.
1) Real life maps
European theatre and Pacific theatre seem like the most logical choice
2) Removal of the 3 chess sides and replacing them with 2, Axis vs Allies
Removal of the fantasy element of the game and introducing historical aspect of the WW2 to the game - Axis vs Allies. This would do 3 things. It could potentialy balance out the player numbers so it's easier to find opponents and battles in the arena because players would be equaly balanced out between the 2 sides.
You would always fight vs the other opponent, currently if you fight vs 1 one side, there is the third side whom you don't see and is doing something else somewhere elsewhere.
The game would have historical encounters, 109 vs spits, 190 vs p51s. No more fantasy encounters of spits vs spits.
Ofcourse, there would be japanese planes fighting spits in europe, but I believe it's better to have that than non realism at all.
3) War 1939-1945
Introduction of time passage from 1939 to 1945 which would happen in real life time. For example 1 hour of real life time would equal 1 week in game time(this is just an example I currently have no idea of how fast or how slow time would pass, everything would have to be tested to find the perfect desired number to have a fun and balanced play).
If a side a wins the war in 1942, the side gets a 'win', the game resets and continues to 1945. Once it's past 1945 the clock goes back to 1939 and 'wins' in the war are counted up for the player and there could even be a uniform page where other players and you could see your achievements.
4) Rolling plane set
Along with the war 1939-1945, RPS aka Rolling Plane Set introduced which would bring historical time frame of when the planes appear.
Example:
Spit I - september 1939
109 E4 - september 1939
190 A5 - early 1942
Effectively this would bring early, med and late planes to the play. All planes would be used, something which we don't see today on the arena. Most people like to play the late war planes because they tend to be 'the best'.
This further accompanies other points of this post.
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Now this is the first part of this post which I would consider a 'necessary' change for the popularity, second part of the post changes the game a little bit further and is more of a 'what if' scenario if Aces High had could be enhanced even further.
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An introduction of a visible movable front line which would serve as an indication of where the current action is which encompasses the fields. When the fields are taken, the front line would move also, this could be potentialy helpfull to the new players easing them to the game. New players entering games like this one, tend to be lost and asking questions 'what do i do?' this would be a visual identification of showing them where they can expect action and where to go.
What do you think?
As always, thanks for reading.