New GV dar

[JunkyII]

Who said we are as good as those furball only squads...did I say it...do I sit here and gloat about how good we are...

Let me go back and find your post about kills in FSO and Combat Challenge....or I could just wait for someone to say it on 200....meh, nope hopefully it's pretty noticeable you are full of it by now.

Oh and I'm not involved with KOTH anymore so now you guys can show up...might learn something.

[SlipKnt]

Just paint 1\2 mile boarders of grass around them and open up vistas with grass and many of the GV problems will go away. The GV's will still sneak onto the fields and into the towns but, if anyone cares to defend, it won't be so lopsided with trees making tanks invisible until it's too late to save your field.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[oakranger]

LOL!!!! its been out what, a couple hours!  Give it a chance.

Dam kids.   

[Dundee]

Just thinking out loud here.  Aircraft in the game can completely avoid radar bar detection under a certain altitude, but it still flashes the base.  What if GV dar bar detection would trigger only if the GV is travelling above a certain speed?

Here's my thinking: GV dar signals when a GV is on the ground. It kind of mimics what some folks have mentioned, like dust clouds, tracks on the ground, etc.  We can't do large dust clouds and tracks in the game, but GV dar kind of acts as the same signal ("hey, there's something down there in that 1 mile square" or whatever size it is).  What if we took that further, and killed those signals when the GV was shut down or travelling under a certain speed.

Just a thought.  Maybe that's a happy medium. 

Final thought: imho, I can't honestly say which iteration of GV dar is/was/could be better.  The ultimate goal of it should be to increase interaction, yet not cross the line into crushing how the game is played based on what you choose to fly or drive.  I don't know if I'm exactly 'sad', but the current evolution will likely end the era of the long range GV mission, which some squads were well known for.  On the flip side, it gives folks like me the exact spot to be if I want to lock horns in a GV with a GV.  But it does seem tilted right now against the GV.

Also, the notion of "good, it should make the GV guys get up in the air and fly" is ridiculous.

As a member of that long range squad you inferred to, not too much different than a long range mission in bombers traveling over the ocean. The bulk of our missions were two sectors which, when we had roads.....we could cover a sector in M3's in just under 30 min, so a 2 sector mission involved about an hour drive, and we know some bombers can take 2 hours and 30 min worth of fuel at full power, cutting back on RPMs you can get about 3 hours of flight time. The people doing the complaining didn't want to spend that amount of time to duplicate what we chose to do...is that wrong, did we need to change the rules to prevent our actions? Or is it more proper to tell the players man up, deal with it or do what they are doing.
 We see where rules, hardness, the amount of trees and now the addition of tank radar is not been put into place to enhance game play but to hinder what a particular squad was very good at.  I think the changes that were put into place and did what they were intended to, the sad realization the new changes impacted more than just our squad it's made the game less than what AH II was. The changes IMO were made so the fur ballers wouldn't have to stop what they like doing and deal with another group that was doing what they like doing...Both were paying the same monthly fee to do that, but one faction is playing a more difficult game due to the changes mentioned above than the other. I know the game is constantly being developed, but I see this development moving in a certain direction and that is to hamper GV operations in this game. I mean the GV's in the game are hampered with all the extra foliage put in here to hamper them, but in reality it really hampered the defenders as well. Another fix in the game that was supposed fix a problem and actually  caused a bigger one.

We had night time when this game launched and it was for quite a few minutes, now it's like less than a minute, shortened because people complained they couln't see...I think it was pretty much a two way street there as the opponent had the same difficulties. The introduction of Icons for Bombers and Tanks was a real step backwards...When a dar showed an aircraft you had to fly there and see what it was.......not now if you see fighter flying to a strat no one ups to do anything..The game was way better when we had just dots and not craft identification. The people who fly fighters in this game get way too much attention when complaints come up. When you cater to one faction in the game the other factions get screwed.... But hey it's not my game and HiTech will run it the way they see fit...weather it's really good for the game as a whole, or for just one faction is going to be what determines how successful this game will be in the future.... The introduction of Steam, I thought, would bring in a lot more players. The arenas were bumped from a max of 500 to 1,000 I personally haven't seen over 275 players in the game. One of the biggest problems is the availability of information on how this game actually works...The new people can't find where the dot commands are listed. I would like to know the hardness of the ships in this game, they are not listed in the game like HQ and other buildings, what's with that? The new people got little or no help in this game, and as a customer it not my job to do that when I playing the game. It's not surprising the 2 weeker's played the game and left, and from the BB on Steam it's apparent that work needs to be done on informing the player base how the game is played. The old timers are not going to give up their secrets on how the do things in here and that bears out on steams BB, that a real problem. 

The game does need some changes...for it to survive.......... so far I have not seen any of the changes moving in that direction from my point of view. This is my view, not the squads view, , what's left of it. People have left for many reasons some of them I pointed out here. It's a game, it's entertainment, I think when it stops being entertaining to folks they leave because there are other games that compete for that entertainment dollar. In the business world it cost very little to keep a customer.....it cost much, much more to find a new one and keep them.

[Devil 505]

Well, this is might be the dumbest load of crap I've heard yet.

[Ciaphas]

I just wish they would extend the GV icon vis out just a little bit. I couldn’t care less if they remove this  GV DAR from the game.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Crash Orange]

I don't think this had anything to do with long range GV missions, that's just another example of unintended consequences. The only hardness that was changed was the HQ, and that's because radar being down across the map all the time was terrible for game play, not to spite any group of players.

It still seems like all of this is, as Bustr said, a lot of work to compensate for the real problem, which is the terrain. It changed from AH2 to AH3 and the change turned out to be bad for the game. So why not just fix the terrain and leave the GV radar out of it? I though vehicles worked fine in AH2, but they're definitely broken now.

Realism is still a silly argument. Realism is fine for the modeling - how fast a certain tank is, how easily X gun could penetrate Y armor at Z distance - but as far as the larger game it's silly to talk about realism in WW2 armored warfare when you take infantry out of the picture. As for visibility, when we have monitors capable of the same resolution as the Mark I Human Eyeball we can talk about realism and icons. Until then no realism is possible in this regard. (And even then, you'd still have the problem that most of us are aging dudes who are WAY too blind to be combat pilots!)

[rvflyer]

Those were good takes when your squad could drive miles and mile undetected and take a base. Sad that cannot be done anymore. I have driven a sector when there was no GV spawn into the town and got a take right under their noses when the town was white flagged because no one suspect a M3 to be in town. Cant do it any more with this silly GV dar.

As a member of that long range squad you inferred to, not too much different than a long range mission in bombers traveling over the ocean. The bulk of our missions were two sectors which, when we had roads.....we could cover a sector in M3's in just under 30 min, so a 2 sector mission involved about an hour drive, and we know some bombers can take 2 hours and 30 min worth of fuel at full power, cutting back on RPMs you can get about 3 hours of flight time. The people doing the complaining didn't want to spend that amount of time to duplicate what we chose to do...is that wrong, did we need to change the rules to prevent our actions? Or is it more proper to tell the players man up, deal with it or do what they are doing.
 We see where rules, hardness, the amount of trees and now the addition of tank radar is not been put into place to enhance game play but to hinder what a particular squad was very good at.  I think the changes that were put into place and did what they were intended to, the sad realization the new changes impacted more than just our squad it's made the game less than what AH II was. The changes IMO were made so the fur ballers wouldn't have to stop what they like doing and deal with another group that was doing what they like doing...Both were paying the same monthly fee to do that, but one faction is playing a more difficult game due to the changes mentioned above than the other. I know the game is constantly being developed, but I see this development moving in a certain direction and that is to hamper GV operations in this game. I mean the GV's in the game are hampered with all the extra foliage put in here to hamper them, but in reality it really hampered the defenders as well. Another fix in the game that was supposed fix a problem and actually  caused a bigger one.

We had night time when this game launched and it was for quite a few minutes, now it's like less than a minute, shortened because people complained they couln't see...I think it was pretty much a two way street there as the opponent had the same difficulties. The introduction of Icons for Bombers and Tanks was a real step backwards...When a dar showed an aircraft you had to fly there and see what it was.......not now if you see fighter flying to a strat no one ups to do anything..The game was way better when we had just dots and not craft identification. The people who fly fighters in this game get way too much attention when complaints come up. When you cater to one faction in the game the other factions get screwed.... But hey it's not my game and HiTech will run it the way they see fit...weather it's really good for the game as a whole, or for just one faction is going to be what determines how successful this game will be in the future.... The introduction of Steam, I thought, would bring in a lot more players. The arenas were bumped from a max of 500 to 1,000 I personally haven't seen over 275 players in the game. One of the biggest problems is the availability of information on how this game actually works...The new people can't find where the dot commands are listed. I would like to know the hardness of the ships in this game, they are not listed in the game like HQ and other buildings, what's with that? The new people got little or no help in this game, and as a customer it not my job to do that when I playing the game. It's not surprising the 2 weeker's played the game and left, and from the BB on Steam it's apparent that work needs to be done on informing the player base how the game is played. The old timers are not going to give up their secrets on how the do things in here and that bears out on steams BB, that a real problem. 

The game does need some changes...for it to survive.......... so far I have not seen any of the changes moving in that direction from my point of view. This is my view, not the squads view, , what's left of it. People have left for many reasons some of them I pointed out here. It's a game, it's entertainment, I think when it stops being entertaining to folks they leave because there are other games that compete for that entertainment dollar. In the business world it cost very little to keep a customer.....it cost much, much more to find a new one and keep them.

[Scca]

I appreciate that Hitech is willing to change things to see how they work. The constant tweaking, to me, is a good thing.

Chill folks, give it a chance. If it doesn't work, it will be adjusted.

[molybdenum]

I appreciate that Hitech is willing to change things to see how they work. The constant tweaking, to me, is a good thing.

Chill folks, give it a chance. If it doesn't work, it will be adjusted.

I didn't play yesterday so I was unaware of the new GV dar square thing until I passed over a base at 23k this morning. Seriously. 23k and a plane can know a GV is there?
HiTech is indeed trying different tweaks with the game, but it seems like every single damn' one of them is meant to please the furball crowd and disadvantage the GVer/bomber pilot. What I like to do (help people take bases and/or be clever and stealthy) is hamstrung with this latest great idea. I beyond hate it.

[Scca]

I beyond hate it.

I played last night, but didn't know about it, so I didn't look for it.  Will reserve judgement until I see it from both sides, GV and air.

That said, I still think that over time adjustments will be made, just like white flag % down, GV icons, and M3 with/without troops. 

[capera]

8thJinx wrote..." The ultimate goal of it should be to increase interaction, yet not cross the line into crushing how the game is played based on what you choose to fly or drive. "

Totally agree.

Here is my opinion....take it for what it's worth.

Aces High III is an amazing simulator with tons of potential.....but as we are all witnessing, our community is dwindling. Opening up the Steam doors was supposed to inject a new life into the sim, but as we see by numbers and comments in here, this is not the answer to growth. A strong community and fairness in game, is what people seek.

I have been a customer of Hitech Creations since 2001. Flying AH, as with most in here, has become a daily routine and for the most part, an enjoyable pass time. But.....as with everything, there are areas for improvement.

There are some apparent issues, in my humble opinion, that is causing the 'player' to leave Aces High. ***Please...do not take this as an attach on AH or Hitech and his work. My intent is constructive feedback, as this sim and community matters to me.

Several issues plaguing AH ......

Documentation

As I read comments, and see "in game" help requests, I am always bewildered how a new player has a chance to survive, unless he/she gets attached to a Squadron that is willing to train them.

Two years ago, I started working with the 49th Fighter Group. At that point of time, I had 14 years under my belt and where I thought I was functional, I soon learned that there was much game information that I was NOT aware of.  DOT COMMANDS for example. What great information to have at hand while you play the sim. Structure down times, Country factory down times...etc...all available to players that are AWARE of it. 14 years I spent hours in this sim, and it has been just that past two years where I learned about and how to use dot commands. Now, unless I missed it....I have never seen these command listed on the Hitech Creations website or in my enrollment documentation. Here I was....14 years in...and I had to wing up with another Squadron just to find out about this in-game ability. Now take the new player into consideration.....how is he going to stand a chance against us Vets....when we have all the tools in OUR toolbox and they are flying on a wing and a prayer.

ALL customers should have the same information available to them, if we expect any kind of fair playing field. We are all paying customers and we all deserve the same product for the $14.95 a month subscription. The customer should not have to "make friends in game" in order to have ALL the options of the sim available to them.


Constant modifications to Ground Vehicles...and how they can be seen

Well...this is an interesting topic. Years and years....the ground vehicles in AHII, pretty straight forward. Players that liked to GV did...and people that like to fly...did.

Then the 49th Fighter Group introduced a whole different tactical approach to Aces High. Those of us that have been here, we know what they did. For those that are new, the 49th would mount up in a set of tanks, and drive for 2 hours across a sector or two....and skillfully commence an attack a Strat or Headquarters.

As I started working with the 49ers, I soon realized that there was much more to this sim, than basic fur balling. These guys were taking the sim to another level. Drive for 2 hours, sometimes more, to a target and effectively take it down. Sounds like a great addition to the sim....right?   Well...... as we all know.....not well received by the players on the other countries. Players complained that the 49er's were ruining the game and it didn't take long, before Hitech Creations stepped in...and started putting obstacles in place, to deter the 49er from dropping the enemy HQ. 1st I think he changed the hardness so that it would take excessive amount of ordnance to drop it. The 49ers came back.....delivered that new raised ord requirement to target, and once again, people complained and HiTech stepped in again and I believe that time, lowered the downtime from 180 min....to 5 min. Essentially killing the 49er's approach to the sim. One of the largest Squadrons in game, if not the largest.........and Hitech did exactly what 8thJinx said we shouldnt do....crush how the game is played, for over 50 players. It could of been a good thing, you know.....maybe Hitech could of worked WITH the 49er....seen the potential to add to the sim....and then come up with a logical solution. One that would work for everyone, but what happened was......the ones that complained we taken care of, and the 49ers activities.....were crushed.

What confuses me is......why discourage tactical game play. Yes....HUGE inconvenience for the enemy when HQ gets dropped. War is HELL.....and having the enemy attaching your factories and HQ does have impact on the overall war. I think the problem was mainly because the people that are flying (furballing) would of have to stop their activity to contend with what the 49ers was delivering. I do understand their frustration, as there was no defense capabilities at these facilities. So....the player would have to fly into the strat, just to defend it. Time consuming and not the most effective way to defend a valuable asset....like a country's factorys or Headquarters.

So...what would of been the better solution? How about this....why not just put DEFENSE capabilities @ the HQ or Strat??  ie: vehicle hanger, man guns...etc.....and then.....DEFEND your country's assets. It is easy to complain about something, much harder to address the issue with a contructive mindset. Complaining to the developer of the sim and getting settings changed, IMHO, was a terrible solution. The owner of this business just CRUSHED the 'legit' gameplay of many many of his customers. What happens when a service provider makes their customers unhappy and the customer feels he/she is not valued......... they leave. 

Think if Hitech put in those defense capabilities at HQ and Strats, how COOL that would be. Players would then have defense capabilities, as we do with air fields and vehicle bases. We are trying to simulate an era....and what real country would have zero defense at a HQ, other than auto ack. Put some MANNED GUNS there. Vehicle Hanger so the enemy can roll tanks to DEFEND. Isn't that the name of the game?  But....Hitech Creations choose to use settings modifications to deal address this situation and an opportunity was missed to enhance this sim. It really is too bad.

It now seems that every possible thing is being done to help the player that is in the air, easily find you on the ground. Speaking as a guy in a tank....this is not good for my longevity.  I need more concealment abilities, as to survive the ever-life-ending dive bomb from a tank hunter. Hitech put in a pile of trees, which helped us.....but then when the players that were not willing to invest the EFFORT to find you, they complain....and once again....settings and adding unrealistic DAR systems....to help easily locate your position. Sorry....but it just CRUSHES the idea behind tanks. Concealment is a huge part of our survival. In WWII.....was there radar so Aircraft could locate tanks? No....they needed to WORK and LOOK for tanks. Not rely on a clipboard information system, that allows a player to pinpoint my location....and therefore kill the element of surprise.

Conclusion


So back to 8thJinx's comment..."The ultimate goal of it should be to increase interaction, yet not cross the line into crushing how the game is played based on what you choose to fly or drive........  Well, the 49th tried to encourage interaction and hoped you folks would of defended, instead of complaining to AH HQ. After all....are we not all here, to battle each other.....hopefully on a even playing field.

We all have different interest, within the sim....but ONE thing we all should have in common....is to want to enhance this sim and community. Players/people want to be ensured that there is fairness and that they are part of the process. Customers matter. Without customers, you have no legs to have a successful business. Customer's feedback....priceless. I have been a paying customer for a long time. I just wish there was a safe place to provide constructive feedback, without the backlash one usually gets here on the forums. 188 posts is all I have over here....as it has been my experience that if you post anything on here, and try to point out areas for improvement.....the regular trolls will be first in line to jump all over you.
 
AHIII....amazing platform. Potential off the charts............but I am afraid until there is cooperation and working together attitude, this sim will dwindle down to a core level of players....and acquiring new 'long term' players will be next to impossible.

There is room for both air-jocks and ground pounders......but lets not put limitation barriers on one of the two groups. Work WITH the people that love to GV...and see what ideas they have, then find a fair, logical solution. Do not just crush their passion to be tankers.

Peace,
capera

[Flayed1]

 So here are my thoughts on the GV dar.  Firstly I think I understand what Hitech is trying to accomplish and I do like knowing that there is a GV in the area  especially when I'm in a GV looking to fight another GV.  This incarnation isn't horrible as it doesn't point you directly at another GV like the first attempt was able to do how ever I do find that having a grid pop up for the entire map to see pretty much makes any long range GV activity impossible.
 I would like to suggest that this current dar grid be linked to enemy players in the grid with you, like a "you have been spotted" effect and if there is no enemy in the grid with you then you remain undetected. And to help with the sneaking right on into town or what have you, have the grid dar fully functional right around town and field  as if personnel or towns folk had spotted the raid coming in and sounded the alarm.   Over all I don't mind the GV dar that much but it feels a bit like overkill in some respects.   I think this would allow for a bit more flexibility as well by being able to set the detector range from planes, other gvs and filds and towns.
  Anyway just trying to be constructive and look for a bit more of a middle ground between being nearly invisible and the current "I have a tracking device in my tank that continuously updates my position on the map" thing we have now.

[Kanth]

I do like that grassy area idea, bustr...

That and maybe detaching base capture areas from spawn areas and making spawn area ack indestructible.

This way if a vehicle is approaching a spawn area, even if he's hiding behind the angle of a building, the ack will be firing on him the whole time pointing him out to folks spawning.

everyone's free to go hunt everyone else and take bases without any spawn camping.

let them sneak around but pay for trying to spawn camp...is the summary..

I think you, bustr,  have an excellent point about developing more maps too.

The GVDAR probably was never needed if Waffle had just put a 1\2 mile band of grass around every town and base when the AH2 maps were converted to AH3. Using grass to open up the 6sq mile micro combat terrain from the GV spawn to the target base would have helped both the GVers and air combat folks. After two terrains using this philosophy, I didn't need the GVDAR at least on my terrains to quickly find GVs with an IL2. And those same GV's, the players who are good at tanking, still wing shot me with their main gun from hiding like they do if they are in the open grass 1\2 mile boarder strips. GVers who have mastered using the AH3 trees to hide in will be hard to find even with the GVDAR. Three of us spent 30 minutes flying a search grid over a 2mile GVDAR block at low alt and never found the GV creating the DAR block. And it was on my terrain Oceania with the opened grass vistas. There are individual tree clump types GV's can shut down inside of that 99% mask them until you drive up to them on the ground unless Hitech introduces enemy GVDOTDAR.

[bustr]

I can make it possible to drive 2 hours to the HQ "if" the squad who wants to do that can first capture a field 2 hours by M3 from the HQ. Knowing me I would set it up so it would cost you dearly just getting that field in the first place. And that would mean who you took it from would be wanting it back just as quickly. And after the first time an HQ was taken out by GVs 2 hours after that field was captured . Everyone would know why anyone wanted that field and where to look for some stray GVs with bombs to greet them ever after. It's called balance.   

Fester didn't think anyone would do that with GV's on his giant furballing map I'm betting. And probably why he exposed his HQ and city to as much abuse as they received. It looks like he thought the HQ and city would make a great honey pot for 163 kills which would place a self limiter on greifers with bombers. Turned out no one wanted to spend their $14.95 by defending the HQ "all night long" and that got abused. If Hitech had asked Waffle to move the HQ back even a 1\2 sector, most of those problems would have gone away. Moving the HQ or any other strat takes 5 seconds and then you just run a build to lock in the change and post a new res file. Hitech probably liked the scenario that the HQ location would generate activity, just not the abusive kind it was getting.

There was the "life of it's own" problem that gained momentum from the constant taking down of the HQ on the Fester map that spilled over to all the other maps. No one was forking over $14.95 to spend their night having to hunt for one single finger salute greifer after another. It was reaching the point they would have to play AH glued to the HQs for every map in rotation because a "minority of players" were forcing them to not enjoy their $14.95 doing other things with their time. Goes along with the CHog HOing scourge and how that effected the community and got it perked, or the AH1 JSO that abused the game and got us ENY. A minority of players were dictating the whole nights outcome for countries out of proportion to the effect any single player should have against a whole country by leveraging a weakness in the game no one thought mattered. Strategic chuckholdery is one of the evils of two sided war strategy games because the only goal is to screw the other side and win at any cost. If you every  build terrains for AH3, balance is demanded by HTC as a rule for getting your masterpiece into rotation.

You can still drop the city to 0% and all the strats to 0% which will strategically impact a whole country. It will cost you time and effort in proportion to the size of that job versus the single finger salute that was keeping countries blinded all night almost every night for months by a minority of players.

Creating a new HQ object that becomes a defend able base in it's own right does what? Do you still want it to blind a country if you destroy it or, now that it can be manned to defend it, a capture able object accomplishing "what"? Sounds like the real direction of the 49ers complaint is one of turning the game into a two country style strategic chuckholdery game where the current object paradigm is redefined so winning the war can be achieved without having to battle across the map against players and personally take their fields away from them. A new paradigm with a secondary war win scenario option, just strategically destroy x,y,z objectives and tell the two countries it's their own fault they didn't think to defend them from sneakier smarter players.