What happened to missions?

[Lusche]

Smash & grab missions had been the most numerous, but not the only kind of missiosn around.
Fighter sweeps, strategic bomber raids (especially from 2012-early 2014) and what I would call tactical bomber missions had been popular too. And, of course the occasional odd "candy mountain" raids and similar follies 

[wil3ur]

My brief time in the BoPs we would do clown car raids that were pretty fun.  Get a group of heavy KI61's to dive bomb a CV from 15K.

The ThunderEgg missions were always fun to either be a part of, or defend against...  but those were few and far between even at the height of missions.

[NatCigg]

3 b-17 sets and 4 juggs to a v base with 4 p-51s buzzing around.

The best, jerry. the best mission for a v base.

 

can u see the wirbs? 

[thndregg]

The lag must have been unbearable. 

30 flights (90 planes), plus escorts, plus opponents. Most times lag wasn't too bad, at least for me. Most everyone seemed to have great fun in those days. Check out the head on mess of red guys we ran into in this mission from 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzKYE0mhlg

[Arlo]

Enjoyable film. I have to admit I enjoyed participating in a couple of big missions, myself (both as escort and as bomber*).

Tis my guilty secret that my second fave plane in AH is the B-17 (and I'm actually better in one than in my beloved Corsair).

[The Fugitive]

Its the type/style of game we have today.

In the old days team work, squads, pretending to be a WWII pilot was the reason MOST of us played the game. To slip into the alternate reality and fly/work with your mates/comrades/friends is what it was all about. Whether you were winging and dogfighting all night, or part of a buff group hitting a base/start/porking run it was pretending to be "that" pilot. Working to get the job done, not wanting to let your mates down, thats what it was all about. All this did was generate action, and fun for both friend and foe alike.

Today, its more about getting a good score, racking up kills by picking and avoiding fights, hiding in ack, running supplies instead of defending, porking bases only to lawndart again avoiding all fights just to "get the job done". Score, ranks, and name in lights seem to be the driving factor these days.

Posting missions gets very little action these days (tho many spent 5 minutes pre launch spamming the radio to get players to join in the old days). Most either dont know how to join one, how to work in one, or feel they cant be held responsible to pull their weight and so feel embarrassed to fail in front of others so dont join. Tagging along in a "movement" by a few well know players here and there is ok as they can hide in the anonymity of the group.

This game has lost a lot of fun to the "gamer" generation.   

[zack1234]

Score rank and landing kills

They know who they are

[Arlo]

Perhaps if mission stats were added to encourage stat players to up their mission stats? 

Missions ran
Missions participated
Mission damage
Missions ranking (?)

(Assuming all these metrics can be accurately recorded.)

Additional encouragement could be that high mission ranking could be the sole factor in TG seniority. 

[DubiousKB]

Perhaps if mission stats were added to encourage stat players to up their mission stats? 

Missions ran
Missions participated
Mission damage
Missions ranking (?)

(Assuming all these metrics can be accurately recorded.)

Additional encouragement could be that high mission ranking could be the sole factor in TG seniority. 

Interesting... I would like to see some form of perk system applied to the pickup missions...  Do damage/land kills through a pickup mission, see your perk points doubled or something...

HANDS DOWN BEST PART OF THIS GAME IS PLAYING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO OTHER ACTUAL PLAYERS!  ..in my opinion.. And the calm before the storm (see boring climbout) is at least interesting when there's a few cartoon pilots close by to chat with.

[Chewie]

Missions?  I still wish I had the recording of when we had 100 B-17s Yes 33 pilots at least, a full wing of P-51 (15-20) escort to Knight Capital.  Many years ago, had the time of my life leading that one and had GREAT Fighter protection.  That one of the few ones that did NOT get ratted out on 200.  To this day, I recall seeing a Spit Climbing up to us and I called out HOLD HOLD HOLD your fire-...........Light him up!, must have 200 guns on that one spit-PUFF OF SMOKE.  I could not stop laughing for 10 mins.  Chewie, Bish.   

[bustr]

What is the difference from how we who were there remember missions? The country wide mission up on text announcement, the signing up and getting ready not knowing the target. And the launching and traveling to the target from how we do it today?

Bases still get captured by groups of players who could have easily filled a mission roster and all launched together. Instead today I see several players head to a field and start working it. Then several more trickle in with fighters, then some GVs show up, and suddenly the rest of about 10-20 players start upping and moving that way. It's like everyone is waiting for the last moment for the other guys to show up before they will commit to showing up. Numbers controlling an area matter in that case. And ad-hoc numbers in that manner can just as quickly disappear leaving other players late to the show feeling green guys can never be trusted. There are players who dislike their own countrymen just about as much as the red guys because of this. This creates a sense of distrust that group initiatives lack any real direction or, that anything will come of them other than getting you towered for no good reason. But, that love hate bargain is what initiatives(missions) have "evolved down to". 

If POTW on squad night decides to pound a feild and we want more numbers, Waystin sends out a message on text. POTW ups as a group, and I can see green guys upping just as soon as they see our numbers create a darbar. Waystin also gets PM's from small groups at times telling him they are about to pound some field and could POTW make a show of force. I'm betting squads reaching out to players and squads they know with requests like this are more the norm now in all three countries. I still regularly see up to 20 guys attack feilds out of nit and bish lands that are organized and made up of more than a single squad.

The formal mission process has been abandoned for a number of reasons, too many gamers with a laptop logged in on a second and third game account watching text and the map. Too many gamers using a cell phone or third party VOX or just game PMing. Too many years of low numbers where a formal mission was not needed, everyone showed up for anything that had three or more guys making a darbar. Operate conditioning works very well if the environment never changes over a long period of time.

We know what positive thing has stayed with the game. If a squad with a name brand reputation for going places and breaking things is online, people go where they go. If that squad asks other squads and players to come help with something, everyone shows up to break things and have a good time. I may be missing individuals who can still do that, I don't see such on text, 200, or feedback from Waystin about requests on PM for POTW support. Right now it appears to be squads leading initiatives, and I can say over the last 10 years I watched the frequency of missions being busted way too soon for someone to guess at exactly where the mission was going. It made joining missions a joke.

[Zoney]

Is there any possibility, even a slight chance, that there are players that study the map and have learned how to anticipate and find missions?  No?  Really? 

Missions are always busted because of spies then, because there is just no way they can be found otherwise.

[bustr]

Actually I never thought it was spies, I thought it was individuals who had personal reasons to rat out their own players and players with multiple accounts ratting out things. A certain percentage of busted missions had to do with not being aware of task groups having been there more than once. Missions above radar minimum can be determined easily, but NOE missions need help when it's not task group related. Yes a percentage got busted because of a timely response to the country wide shout out. So once you eliminate all of that, second accounts which are a reality, and players ratting out their countrymen for various reasons are left. I doubt anyone was tooling around running film mission busting on the off chance they might pickup a mission at max range for the film. Or is that why Hitech changed being able to playback films with the game open or on another PC until a set time had passed after capturing the film. The Jaro country text meet at feild x in your favorite jabo ride missions didn't suffer from none accounted for untimely interventions nor did the FreeBird missions that gave no target destination and upped from a different field than advertised. I think the FreeBird missions stopped being fun once all those extra gyrations were introduced for no perceptible reason.

I know, Jaro and Dred spent an inordinate amount of time trying to determine CV locations before hand, and only invited trusted friends even if the roster for each mission was ever changing. And game players are choir boys who go to church 7 days a week while worshiping the rules of Edmond Hoyle.   

[Zoney]

Many NOE missions are busted because not everyone stayed below the dar threshold.  On take off they would pop.  As a turn is made they would pop.  it was obvious, you would see a small darbar and then gone, up again and then gone, up again a sector closer to target and then gone.  The more participants you had the more likely it would be given away.

Stop the delusional paranoia.

[Lazerr]

Typically those older missions went for the target of least resistance.. it was quite easy to see where they would go next by looking at the map.. gv spawns.. terrain features, etc..