What is Vehicle quadrant??

[TDeacon]

Ok, we agree on this. Historically (and today), armor that is seen from the air is generally not long for this world.

That said, why do you want GVs to be able to operate with full autonomy in an environment that is dominated by aircraft?

edit: Personally, I don't like the vehicle quadrant feature. I would rather have aircraft spotting tell tale signs of armor moving among tree lines (such as deep tracks and cleared trees and brush). Without that feature available on a static terrain, I don't see what alternative Hitech had.

Given we play in a sandbox, IMHO it is good for AH to extend the proven gameplay opportunities we have always had for AC to GVs.  Meaning that no matter what the roster mix at a given moment, and in most places on the map, it should be easy to up any platform (AC, GV, or whatever), quickly find combat, get kills, and land them (!!!).  This should cater to a wider mix of game play preferences, and interest a greater range of paying subscribers.  (As an example, the few people I know who might have subscribed, would most likely have GVed, had that portion of the game not been increasingly nerfed). 

WRT what alternative Hitech had, I think he should have left the hard-to-find-GV aspect alone.  When AC are around, individual GVs are highly unlikely to survive obtain / land kills (see above), unless they have the ability to (at the cost of temporarily abandoning their mission) hide from AC.  There is a partial exception to the previous statement, which is when the GV is part of a horde or mini-horde, and hence has numbers and air cover on its side.  Limiting gameplay to the horde-member scenario is undesirable, however. 

Going further, I would like to see Hitech re-introduce terrain with micro-hills and mini-hills, encouraging a maneuvering style of GV play with opportunities for long-range shooting from an elevation, as well as short-range on the flat.  Remove the boulder-strewn slopes introduced in AH3, which slow movement on slopes to sometimes 1mph.  Shooting from a higher elevation isn't bad; remember that line-of-sight works both ways.  This style of terrain, which we used to have, also encourages maneuvering to achieve fighting positions which allow solid terrain objects such as berms and crests to be used to protect the shooting GV from directions other than that which it plans to shoot along (one of many important potential force multipliers which a single GV can use). 

Instead, we currently have a GV environment where the main opportunity for kills is lying in wait and various types of positional camping, and the chances for survival to land kills again decreasing, as we get more game mechanisms facilitating locating GVs. 

MH

[+Kilroy+]

Pre quadrant you have actually yakked on 200 about telling Waystin2 that I am not moving until he leaves or some sort of drivel.  Hiding... Next?

I never tune 200. You are disseminating fake news about...drivel. Hiding is bad why? The fact that it keeps you searching and not attacking is reason enough to go to a field and hide. Curiously, when it is revealed Kilroy is there, the number of searchers increases by an order of magnitude. Now we have one Bishop holding down 3 or more opponents and allowing other Bishops to attack against weaker forces. That narrative ALONE, is enough to justify and promote the practice of "hiding" and it does not even cover all the offensive reasons, not to mention defensive reasons, one would deploy it. Understandably as an opponent you may harbor negative bias against such tactics, however you've shown no tactical, nor moral reason why this practice might be "bad." Perhaps you need to express yourself with feelings. Please try to contribute to the thread in a substantive manner, thanks.

[redcatcherb412]

It DOES take some practice! Like anything else though, once you get it down..it IS fairly easy to attack GVs from Planes. I practice every day. Its what I really like to do, and not with 1000 pound bombs. 250 is more than enough to kill just about any GV in the game....if you put it on them. I do it every day

Which is worse in a GV, a Lanc-stuka formation with salvo 10 or the lone 1stpar spit circling above you can't hear or see dropping a 250 on your tank ?

[waystin2]

I never tune 200. You are disseminating fake news about...drivel. Hiding is bad why? The fact that it keeps you searching and not attacking is reason enough to go to a field and hide. Curiously, when it is revealed Kilroy is there, the number of searchers increases by an order of magnitude. Now we have one Bishop holding down 3 or more opponents and allowing other Bishops to attack against weaker forces. That narrative ALONE, is enough to justify and promote the practice of "hiding" and it does not even cover all the offensive reasons, not to mention defensive reasons, one would deploy it. Understandably as an opponent you may harbor negative bias against such tactics, however you've shown no tactical, nor moral reason why this practice might be "bad." Perhaps you need to express yourself with feelings. Please try to contribute to the thread in a substantive manner, thanks.

Lighten up Francis.  No one is picking on you.  You are a great GVer.  I am not discussing good or bad.  That is something you can work out with your shrink.  The inability to find and destroy an enemy GV in a reasonable amount of time is exactly the reason why the quadrant was introduced.  The hiding behavior that you say contributes to the offense (chuckle) as you say.  Kudos to Hitech for the Quadrant implementation and I still say it needs to be lengthened to about 300 yards for planes, but not visible to other GVers.

[Kingpin]

Hiding is bad why? The fact that it keeps you searching and not attacking is reason enough to go to a field and hide.

As an opponent you may harbor negative bias against such tactics, however you've shown no tactical, nor moral reason why this practice might be "bad."

Kilroy,

I know those comments weren't directed at me, but I would like to address this issue.  As someone who flies on all sides (rotating roughly every tour and sometimes switching for side balance), I have no bias for or against Bishops or any side.  Just yesterday, you and I flew together (with some other Bish players) and I think you know I contribute to my current side's efforts with as much enthusiasm for that side as I do when on an opposing side.  I hope you would agree that I have no bias toward you or the Bishop side in that regard.  So, I ask you to take a step back from the issue for a second and think about what I am writing here for a moment, before dismissing my opinions as heavily "biased" and therefore "not contributing to the thread".

As an Aces High Trainer, I feel very strongly that a part of my (volunteer) "job" is help people enjoy the game more. This is especially true when it comes to retaining more new players, which is probably the biggest issue facing the game right now.  In that regard, I do have very strong opinions as to what contributes positively to Aces High gameplay and what does not. 

The Aces High Home Page and the Aces High Steam page say it is a game promoting "combat between other players".  Players want to get into a vintage aircraft or vehicle, shoot at things and blow stuff up.  If they get to do that, the game is more fun.  If not, it is less fun.  When I help/train other players, it is so they can more effectively blow up more stuff.  The game is not called "Aces Hide and Seek".  That type of gameplay may be fun for some people, because for them "not fighting is winning", but it is generally not good gameplay and certainly does not appeal to a mass audience.

That said, if you want to spend your Aces High hours hiding, that is your choice.  You once told me you spent "8 hours sitting in one place just to flash a base".  OK, YOU can do that if that is fun for YOU.  But in the bigger picture, you yourself have described above how that affects the gameplay for others -- several people fly around, expecting something to shoot at, looking for something they can't find it (because of the no icon situation), so they land and leave.  Hurray, you won.  But some of those people will log off looking for something better to do.  Some people who log off regularly for not finding action in the game won't return.  And that is the biggest problem facing the game today -- player retention.  And I am not blaming you for that, I am just saying action retains players, uneventful sessions of hide and seek does not.

So, Hitech is simply making changes to his game to promote more combat.  That is a good thing for the game.   Things that promote combat are mostly good for the game and things that restrict/avoid combat are mostly bad.  (If you read my post in the Wishlist section, I do have opinions on other ways the "ground warning dar" could be implemented to be less " gamey", and I'd rather just see a small icon range change instead.  I'd encourage your feedback there, in fact.)

You specifically asked for a "moral reason" why hiding under a tree, virtually invisible, for hours at a time is bad for the game.  I hope you will at least consider this answer -- not in the sense that I am asking you to change how you play, but rather that you will accept the reason for the game-design changes.

<S>
Kingpin

[atlau]

Kingpin very well said

[Spikes]

The best way to promote combat would be to not make it more advantageous and efficient to run field supplies in an M3 to a town than to roll a plane or GV and defend said field.

[8thJinx]

Can I get a list of "perceived" things the AH GV game has been saddled with that are supposed to be killing the GV game. I've heard the root cause for almost 15 years, "Hitech is personally doing this to screw GVs because he won't consult us before he screws us".  Please just itemize the things so I can look at it from a terrain builder's perspective. I saw on Oceania at A61 an AH2 textbook GV spawn battle the other night that lasted for about 2 hours. So aside from programming things only Hitech can address, I've attempted to address up to now what the terrain editor allows.

I don't buy it for a minute that Hitech is willfully screwing the GV game. At least not from my recent experience in communicating with Hitech, Skuzzy, or Waffle.  They seem heartily interested in enhancing gameplay, period. 

However, from a terrain perspective, we have to agree that the real estate between the spawns and towns and bases has radically changed in AH3.  R-A-D-I-C-A-L-L-Y.  There can be no argument against this statement.  The terrain features have changed.  It's nobody's fault.  Nobody is willfully doing it.  Nobody is trying to screw another guy out of some fun.
 It's simply a learning curve thing, and the thing we need to learn is a better way of "painting" and "lumping" the terrain.  To put it bluntly, the terrains from the edge of the base/town outward to the spawns right now are largely (not 100%, but largely) dead zones of activity.  It's the thing you muscle your vehicle through to get to a town or base.  That's not the way it used to be.  Compello, Ozkansas, Ndisles, none of these maps had the degree of forestation and terrible sight lines as we're seeing now.  Except Baltic, the AH3 version of that terrain is pretty good and actually is close to what the AH2 version offered.

Open valleys, clear lines of sight, unforrested lowlands, opportunities to fight for little hills or strong points, or for control of the real estate between spawns, small terrain features you can leapfrog to and from to get a better position, these things were like oxygen for GV gameplay.  Again, it's no one's fault, this wasn't intentional, but maybe the broad strokes of converting an AH2 terrain into an AH3 terrain left them with heavily-treed forests and jungles, and little detail in the land itself.  In my humble opinion, that stripped the GV game of oxygen.  The most important thing is this: it's an easy fix.  Every single GV'er should be confident that these things are fixable.

I would love to be allowed to massage Ndisles or Grinder or SMPizza or even SFMA or Montis.  Not touch the location of a single spawn or base.  Just work with the TE terrain brushes and elevation tools.  I don't know if that's possible, but I wish it was so I could prove my point.

[Oldman731]

Hiding is bad why? The fact that it keeps you searching and not attacking is reason enough to go to a field and hide. Curiously, when it is revealed Kilroy is there, the number of searchers increases by an order of magnitude. Now we have one Bishop holding down 3 or more opponents and allowing other Bishops to attack against weaker forces.

And yet another illustration of the difference between war-winners and furballers.  But really, do you log onto a combat game to play hide-and-seek?  Really?

- oldman

[bozon]

It DOES take some practice! Like anything else though, once you get it down..it IS fairly easy to attack GVs from Planes. I practice every day. Its what I really like to do, and not with 1000 pound bombs. 250 is more than enough to kill just about any GV in the game....if you put it on them. I do it every day

250 lbs? 
I go straight to the 4000 lbs cookie, and lob it at the vehicle's general direction.

[+Kilroy+]

Kilroy,

I know those comments weren't directed at me, but I would like to address this issue.  (yadda, yadda, yadda, etc. Content deleted so people wouldn't forget what we are talking about)

That is a really, really long passage about the merits of hiding. This thread is about quadrant radar and it's merits. As a representative if HTC, I would think you would want to stick to the rules.

The Aces High Home Page and the Aces High Steam page say it is a game promoting "combat between other players".  Players want to get into a vintage aircraft or vehicle, shoot at things and blow stuff up.  If they get to do that, the game is more fun.  If not, it is less fun.  When I help/train other players, it is so they can more effectively blow up more stuff.  The game is not called "Aces Hide and Seek".  That type of gameplay may be fun for some people, because for them "not fighting is winning", but it is generally not good gameplay and certainly does not appeal to a mass audience.

By this long worded paragraph,  am I to assume that, by your interpretation, our gameplay must be always be oriented around "entertaining new players?" That puts kind of a Hunger Games twist to it, no? And, btw, who made you the authority on what appeals to a mass audience?

Some people who log off regularly for not finding action in the game won't return.  And that is the biggest problem facing the game today -- player retention.  And I am not blaming you for that, I am just saying action retains players, uneventful sessions of hide and seek does not.

This is a presumption on your part. People log off in frustration, usually for getting killed, without killing. We all know this, we all have experienced it, it is FACTUAL. Now you may have a "theory" about hiding tanks discouraging subscriptions, but you would have to substantiate it. The biggest problem facing the game today is not player retention, the biggest problem facing the game is remaining in existence. People picking their soapbox issue, like hiding tanks and then attempting to elevate that to "the biggest problem" does not help.

You once told me you spent "8 hours sitting in one place just to flash a base".

You don't post on forums much, do you. If you did, you would know intrinsically that unless you quote someone in the most flattering terms possible, that quote is only valid until they reply. Then it is a misquote and why did you bring it up in the first place? Possibly to support a biased point of view that wasn't even perceived until you started misquoting.
With you country flipping all the time, why would I EVER want to tell you ANYTHING that did not ultimately contribute to Bishop winning maps. If you accepted some sort of disinformation as factual, it is not my fault.

So, I ask you to take a step back from the issue for a second and think about what I am writing here for a moment, before dismissing my opinions as heavily "biased" and therefore "not contributing to the thread".

No you opened this subject kitten. So I go to a field and it starts flashing, oh no! So a noob flyer gets in his nice Spit16 and goes to the flashing field, no cons, bummer! So he goes and bombs my field, undefended, how disappointing for him! Where is this hiding thing, which I may or may not do, where is it causing such loss of hope, joy and promise? How, by hiding, do I kill him and not give him a chance for revenge? How does it kill the game?
 
You know what I think kills the game? Egocentric kill counters that do not work for a common goal, that glitch around the game, jumping to the low eny countries and raking up kills in an attempt to fill the gaping hole in their ego where their self confidence is supposed to reside. Pretending to break from engagements in order to sneak back in and kill someone landing is not becoming, does not promote good sportsmanship and is 100% self serving.
 As a representative of HTC, I would think my first duty would be to remain absolutely silent, lest I offend or misrepresent my "employer." Lacking that, I would want everything I utter to be absolute gold flattery, so my masters would know I lackey well. If I were unable to accomplish that, I would know that I had become an Aces High trainer, simply for the privilege of calling myself that.

And yet another illustration of the difference between war-winners and furballers.  But really, do you log onto a combat game to play hide-and-seek?  Really?

My tank presides over more base takes than any other single individual vehicle in the game. No, M3's do no "preside." verb, be in the position of authority in a meeting or gathering.

Lighten up Francis.  No one is picking on you.  You are a great GVer.  I am not discussing good or bad.  That is something you can work out with your shrink.  The inability to find and destroy an enemy GV in a reasonable amount of time is exactly the reason why the quadrant was introduced.  The hiding behavior that you say contributes to the offense (chuckle) as you say.  Kudos to Hitech for the Quadrant implementation and I still say it needs to be lengthened to about 300 yards for planes, but not visible to other GVers.

And you still don't say why your feelings are valid. This is why the quadrant was introduced:

BTW the range of the vehicle radar is adjustable for observer,vehicle,plane and flack independently.

Also the quadrant is my first attempt at displaying some type of info that vehicles are in the area. I've wanted to add some type of display since AH3 was released, the reason is because of the increased tree density making if difficult to even know if a vehicle is in the area.

I'm convinced that more info was needed simply showing that a vehicle is some where to be found to fight in visible range. So any suggestion how to display that a vehicle is in the area(3 - 5 mile radius), with out giving a precise location will be considered.

HiTech

So let's try to stay on topic.

I wonder if this addition was spurred on by exit polls of new players? Maybe one of the answers given most often was "When in a GV I get killed before I know anyone is around"

From a guy that doesnt GV often I can tell you it is very frustrating to be hammered time after time without ever seeing the enemy. Sound doesn't seem to give out positional info like it use to, trees are so abundant that you need a chainsaw to get around, tracers are wonky, planes flying over head drown out all sounds other than the planes, and so on.

I would think GVing would be the action most new players are going to stick with at first. Air to air has a steep learning curve, and bombing is a bit boring. Gvs on the other hand is only a few keys to drive and shoot and can most easily be done with a mouse as your controller. But if your getting blown away time after time with out knowing how and so cant correct it why would you stay?

"Maybe" is a big word, I think you are totally mistaken. This game is called "Aces High," not "Roadrage," or something. I flew a different sim on a different platform. I competed on a ladder and was at the top, briefly. Of Mac geeks who flew F-18's in a small little ladder, I was #1 in the world. Big whoop, I am sure we all have similar stories. It got old, I looked around, found AH, been here since, still haven't made #1 - in flying at least. EVERYONE who comes here is an ace waiting to be discovered. Those who get tired of waiting, or check this out - elevate their gameplay out of the fist fight dueling arena of kill counting dogfights - turn to GVing.
 Aside from the occasional M3 supply, I flew exclusively for, well, about 10 years. Fell on a time of bad luck and a winter without work ,or joystick and by March I am #1 in GV's, go figure. Before that, it never even occurred to me to gv, it could happen to anyone. So I discount your theory of noobs leaving because of gv complexities. Maybe some do.

 I also discount your theory about getting blown away, but granted, I have different experiences. See, if some dweeb kills me I think, "but that guy is a dweeb, there must be some trick" and then I figure it out.

250 lbs?
I go straight to the 4000 lbs cookie, and lob it at the vehicle's general direction.

Some people try to pretend that they are not simply counting kills and say they are working on style to be skillful. Which are you?

[+Kilroy+]

I'll tell you what, here is my idea. HiTech introduced the indicator because he wanted to make the game funner. There is nothing wrong with that, it is a great goal. The problem is, I think, as often happens here, is that in doing so, he has, or at least feels like he has, opened some sort of chasm between highly opinionated and deeply opposing groups. I don't know, but if I had his job, I'd just slam the door on the lot of us and maybe, just maybe check back to see who's standing when the dust settles.

 So, I'll accept my part and apologize for being divisive. I will try to be as neutral as possible, in the interests of working together. If we like this enhancement, we should say so and why and try to be constructive and if not, the same. I am not opposed to encouraging fighters to do other things besides dogfight, because if it easier and funner for my countrymen, they will bomb more tanks also. I still think the indicator should be non directional, a simple warning light and I have no real opinion about it's range. The reason I prefer a non directional indicator is that the quadrant icon moves away from the solid tradition of having a very realistic and carefully recreated WWII experience, in favor of something that is app-like.

 Granted the chat bar is a necessary and unconventional inclusion; in this age of valuable subscriptions, I do not see quadrant dar as a make or break addition. To accomplish that would require fundamental changes that give new users fulfillment, which is a tough call in this age of shortened attention spans. So to me, it causes subtle changes in how the game flows and should therefore be considered appropriately.

[Copprhed]

You speak of "realism", yet you rely on UNREALISTIC characteristics of the GAME, i.e. flashing a base, to "play" the GAME.

[Delirium]

As a representative of HTC, I would think my first duty would be to remain absolutely silent, lest I offend or misrepresent my "employer." Lacking that, I would want everything I utter to be absolute gold flattery, so my masters would know I lackey well. If I were unable to accomplish that, I would know that I had become an Aces High trainer, simply for the privilege of calling myself that.

That was incredibly rude. You do realize that AH Trainer do not get paid, aside from a free account while working as a Trainer. If they spend the time recommended in the Training Arena, it amounts to less than 25 cents an hour. I guarantee that most exceed this time and attempt to inject more fun into the game itself.

I could go on about how you represent the negatives about this community. However, I know there are plenty of good people here that come out of the woodwork to help one another, and you should follow that example.

[bozon]

Some people try to pretend that they are not simply counting kills and say they are working on style to be skillful. Which are you?

I gave up on being skillful. I have no skill, so I just fly with the hord, pick, and HO - these white-text messages from enemy players that I keep getting seem to confirm that, word for word.

And come on, there is no kill better than an over-kill.