base turnover: guns vs hangars

[Ciaphas]

Do posted missions actually get filled now there isn't more then 300 people online? Because they didn't at all before last year..

I believe that if a few of the "trusted vet" pilots posted a relevant mission it would get people to join. Probably small participation to begin with but as they went on, more and more people would join in.

There has to be an end game to a mission that gives everyone their kicks.

[The Fugitive]

I believe that if a few of the "trusted vet" pilots posted a relevant mission it would get people to join. Probably small participation to begin with but as they went on, more and more people would join in.

There has to be an end game to a mission that gives everyone their kicks.

Thats the best thing about missions, if done right there is an end game for everyone!

Buffs, climb out to a waypoint at altitude use a second waypoint to have the correct line to target, or move darbar to a different sector. calibrate and drop bombs from alt. This is what the Bomber guys are looking for!

Fighter, high cover. Some guys like using bombers as bait and love picking the guys who try to attack bombers

Fighter attack. Some guys love dive bombing targets be they buildings or vehicles.

GVs, troop transport, ground cover, anti tank ambush.

And these elements to a mission and EVERYBODY on the attacking side is happy.

From the defensive side fighters, attackers and GVs all work the defense in and around the field under attack. Bombers are needed to slow the attack from which ever base is being used.

Of course that generates more defenders on the "attacking" side to keep the enemy away from the base .

The issue is nobody want to take the time to put these together any more. With the "we want it now" generation in charge anything more than a couple minutes is too long. That makes these things very hard to get rolling.

[Ciaphas]

Thats the best thing about missions, if done right there is an end game for everyone!

Buffs, climb out to a waypoint at altitude use a second waypoint to have the correct line to target, or move darbar to a different sector. calibrate and drop bombs from alt. This is what the Bomber guys are looking for!

Fighter, high cover. Some guys like using bombers as bait and love picking the guys who try to attack bombers

Fighter attack. Some guys love dive bombing targets be they buildings or vehicles.

GVs, troop transport, ground cover, anti tank ambush.

And these elements to a mission and EVERYBODY on the attacking side is happy.

From the defensive side fighters, attackers and GVs all work the defense in and around the field under attack. Bombers are needed to slow the attack from which ever base is being used.

Of course that generates more defenders on the "attacking" side to keep the enemy away from the base .

The issue is nobody want to take the time to put these together any more. With the "we want it now" generation in charge anything more than a couple minutes is too long. That makes these things very hard to get rolling.

They get put together outside of the mission editor. Micro missions are constantly happening, you just don't see them as they are not made with the mission editor nor are they posted for all to see.

[bustr]

There is a major disconnect with missions in AH3. When POTW does squad night we get questions about where we are going when we decide to break something. Then we end up with a trailer of green guys showing up to take advantage of our work. I watch missions posted by well known players which only gain a few seats and "maybe" start something. Often it looks like they get noticed and a dinner bell gets rung to thwart them. After Hitech reduced the radar minimum to 65ft, missions started to go away until we have almost none in AH3.

Uncoordinated effort does not attract defenders until it's obvious 10-20 people have straggled in and are not just passing through. The country being attacked turns a blind eye while a coordinated dar block moving with purpose rings an irresistible dinner bell. A mission means heavily loaded sitting ducks to get easy kills against. That was why missions worked in AH2 due to the radar minimum of 200ft to hide under until everyone popped on top of the target. Then the defenders showed up to fighters ready to furball having pitched their ordinance. And the way the current radar works, you might as well deliver a detailed mission plan on 200 when you launch.

On squad night POTW takes advantage of the uncoordinated effort effect to get a first wave of target destruction on the field. After that it's a toss up if enough green guys have followed or the country keeps ignoring us while we pick off a few defenders and hammer the town. For the most part this kind of informal initiative has replaced missions since it does not always trigger the dinner bell like a 60ft elevation NOE sitting duck mission does. One or two players always have the expected problems with staying below radar when the minimum is 65ft. If a single red block keeps popping up and going away in an obvious path to an out of the way target. That rings the dinner bell and why we don't see missions much anymore. Also there became historic sentiment that missions get ratted out for a host of reasons and why bother.

When you look at the few big missions that still get launched, the mission is a squad that already had numbers for squad night or, like a few do. The exercise of posting a mission is to give green guys a chance to tag along. POTW has enough guys so we go break things as a group and don't worry about the green guys.

In AH2 we noticed if we used a planned mission to organize our squad for a base attack we often got ratted out, the red guys always were waiting for us at the target. If our CO just said on squad channel to bring bombs and meet at the same end of the runway, we got to the target unopposed. You could say there is a trust issue after AH2 for many vets.   

[icepac]

I'm not sure the game can apply different rebuild times to guns of the town and the base.

If a base is taken and the town guns and buildings remain down, then you would have red and green troops all over the place.

Come to think of it, that might be fun.

[SPKmes]

I think the flag should be lowered and we observe a 5 minute silence in remembrance of those whose score was tarnished trying to defend.

 

Oi you...Stop coming in and making light of things...this is serious stuff going on here and we don't need any of your tom foolery here....Ok !

[The Fugitive]

They get put together outside of the mission editor. Micro missions are constantly happening, you just don't see them as they are not made with the mission editor nor are they posted for all to see.

I know most think of me a a "fighter" guy, but I like to join in on missions. Its too bad players feel the need to hide the missions they are running. Do they fear "spies"? Do they fear other tagging along to feed on their work like bustr posted?

Bustr, I dont think it was the 65feet dar change that took out the missions. I think it was human nature. The type of players we have today are very different than those we had years ago. They are the "i want it now" generation and cant be bothered with creating bomber streams with high fighter cover and so on.

When I lead the 444th Air Mafia for years we did missions all the time. We had some that we used often and everyone had their assignments. I would call out a mission name and give a time and we would roll. Other missions I would setup and plan out while everyone was furballin, or just having fun. I'd post the mission and give a time and the squad would load up and off we would go. Those nights I spent most of my time in a buff as a back up so that all I really did was co-ordinate the missions and tweaking them on the fly so to speak.

The Mafia was starting is downward trend as all squads do, I was pretty burned out doing missions Mugz and Taz both took over for awhile but eventually the Mafia closed shop. I join OddCaf and the 47 Ronin and he planed many missions for the squad. Again we had good participation and the missions while pretty wild were always fun. But the game continued to change. It became more important to land big numbers of kills so some of the help wasn't really much help, and the defenders didnt want to fights us, they just wanted to pick us to rack up kills. Kind of took the fun out of the game, many of that squad quit with in a week of each other.

And so here we are now, low numbers, nobody running or joining missions, players running from fights as soon as they blow their first pass, players hiding in ack, players waiting to resupply town/fields before the attack even does any damage. Things need to change to bring back the heart and soul of this game. Gamers are use to rules and having to do certain things in a certain order to accomplish what ever their end game is. Add some rules, make more important or less important to GUIDE the players into bringing bad the interaction of players VS players again.

[JunkyII]

I believe that if a few of the "trusted vet" pilots posted a relevant mission it would get people to join. Probably small participation to begin with but as they went on, more and more people would join in.

There has to be an end game to a mission that gives everyone their kicks.

You can't expect players to "put in work" while playing a video game...most gamers are looking for a hobby outside of work, some do find big missions as that hobby but you can't expect any of the player base to do it.

[Ciaphas]

You can't expect players to "put in work" while playing a video game...most gamers are looking for a hobby outside of work, some do find big missions as that hobby but you can't expect any of the player base to do it.

who said anything about forcing them?


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[guncrasher]

who said anything about forcing them?


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fugitive.

Players arent going to make changes unless forced to by changes in the game.

semp

[Lazerr]

Perk bonus would help populate mission.. maybe if the creator was able to put a perk purse on a mission.. 200 perks for a 10 man mission, 20 per participant in whichever category they join under.  Might help rebuild the community aspect in the MA, which seems pretty sparse the times I get to play.

Something else to use perk points on would be nice too.

Ive got groups of guys together, and we use range to coordinate and decide where to go next.  Most of the guys that join in are established players, and we have worked together previously.  The pickup mission tool might streamline things for new guys.

[Ciaphas]

fugitive.

semp

My reply was in reference to JunkyII's reply to my post.




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[guncrasher]

Perk bonus would help populate mission.. maybe if the creator was able to put a perk purse on a mission.. 200 perks for a 10 man mission, 20 per participant in whichever category they join under.  Might help rebuild the community aspect in the MA, which seems pretty sparse the times I get to play.

Something else to use perk points on would be nice too.

Ive got groups of guys together, and we use range to coordinate and decide where to go next.  Most of the guys that join in are established players, and we have worked together previously.  The pickup mission tool might streamline things for new guys.

would be an easy way to help a squadie that doesnt have enough perks for a 262.

semp

[bustr]

Ive got groups of guys together, and we use range to coordinate and decide where to go next.  Most of the guys that join in are established players, and we have worked together previously.  The pickup mission tool might streamline things for new guys.

This is the mission of AH3 in today's game culture. I've watched it work when POTW is rook or knight for the last 5 years as it became the norm at the end of AH2. The mission planner cannot compete with the direct "now" of informal relationships between players who know each other and have years long honed skill sets. They have common interests and common goals supported by the experience of succeeding visa this informal process. It excludes the new player by accident, not by intent but, gives an impression of exclusivity to a club they don't have knowledge how to join. It lacks the formality of the mission planer process which includes the acceptance into the club activity central to new players gaining a feeling of belonging in this community.

Most new players never realize everything they see taking place in their country is an open invitation to jump in and their help is always welcome. Much like the clipboard and "Help", you have to figure it out on your own with no welcome mats, no new guy party, no flashing neon signs leading you to all the available activities. This game has always been a bit like having to teach yourself a programing language from a book. Just so you can process log files into a daily report becasue Microsoft thought no one would want reports like that. 

Who knows, with all the informal groups loosely arranging to lift at field x or y to hit field z, throwing a note out on country may solve the new player joining the club issue. I see it from time to time but, these kinds of informal activities have no leaders, no prearranged target objectives, while everyone knows what to break to get the capture. The no leaders is the weak link in getting out a message. Kind of like how kids played sandlot baseball and football 60 years ago before we locked our kids up in the house with xbox's for fear the "lunatics" would steal the kids off the playground in broad daylight. All the kids in your neighborhood showed up because everyone wanted to play those games. New kids learned where as they developed friendships in the neighborhood.

Organized missions to feed the fix for organized mission junkies is one thing. Organized activities to make new players feel part of our community is another breed of cat entirely. There is always some kind of activity on the map, then depending on time of day, loosely organized groups of players heading to the same target to get their game fix. Missing is the invitation to new players to tag along and take part to learn the game. You don't need a formal planed mission when a message on country or range or Help will suffice to give the new player a place to get started. It's the communication that really matters to a new player of where to show up and where to go to help break an enemy field. Vets these days are not interested in waiting around for a mission when our numbers and opportunity for activity windows are limited. The informal pickup process is organic, quicker to organise, and in sync with the current limitations of our low community numbers. 

[molybdenum]

And so here we are now, low numbers, nobody running or joining missions, players running from fights as soon as they blow their first pass, players hiding in ack, players waiting to resupply town/fields before the attack even does any damage. Things need to change to bring back the heart and soul of this game. Gamers are use to rules and having to do certain things in a certain order to accomplish what ever their end game is. Add some rules, make more important or less important to GUIDE the players into bringing bad the interaction of players VS players again.

In essence (if we take your worldview to be correct) you need to change the mentality of a generation of new players. I don't agree with you (there really aren't enough new players on to foist a new paradigm on us, are there?) but let's say for a moment you are right. What do you think ought to be done; and, more importantly, why do you think it would work?