Free to play 35-40 ENY planes good or bad idea?

[SPKmes]

pictures people..pictures....there is no time to read... you need to be a banner ad with flashing things to attract attention... that is part of adwords too... flashy banners....

Oooorrrr   we could all just stop whinging and have good things to say and get those things floating around the sinternets.... hmmm   actually... people like doom and gloom and are more likely to click on something destructive than constructive.... oh who am I kidding...everyone whether you choose to admit it.. watches those funny cat and dog videos and has a quiet awwww feels moment...

[SPKmes]

Hmmm... perhaps a fluffy kitten video and then have aceshigh action pop into it and back to the kitten.... like those many years ago when they did it to scare people.....  I think i'm on to something....   I will not have any criticism thank you... no matter how(aceshigh3)constructive you may think it is.....


Yep i think I have cracked it....

[DmonSlyr]

Free planes like the spit5 and 109f after the 2 week free trial would keep more players in the game and let them practice the game longer while encouraging them subscribe to fly the better planes. I believe players need longer than 2 weeks for MA style combat. Its normally just too big for new players to understand. Long flight distances is probably the biggest turn off for new guys. Imagine flying to a base for 10 minutes only to get blown out of the sky instantly by puff ack or a gang of yak3s. Even a noob in a yak3 isn't going to be able to fight against other yak3s or a gang of em. It really doesn't matter what plane they fly until they learn the ropes a bit.

This spit5 and 109f freebee would be a great Incentive for Euro players aswell and would increase the nightly #s.

No one can be beast mode in these 2 planes. Therefore older players coming back wouldn't be able "game" it.

You really only need these 2 planes. The point is to allow players to play for free, keep players in the MA, and mostly certainly they will subscribe to get to fly that better plane. Getting more people in the MA is the key to increasing profits in the medium/long term run, once a player subscribes, they typically subscribe longer than a month. Higher #s in the game will lead to much more subscribers overall.

[Lazerr]

I still think the issue with player numbers is the steep learning curve, not the price.

Maybe its the fact the arena is dark in the primetime window.

Maybe its the fact that they are stuck on a side that is hording, or being horded, without the ability to switch.

Maybe its the fact that there is a map in the arena that is too large, and makes the gameboard look stale?

Maybe its the fact that the preferred method of defense is a barely visable m3 running supplies, which should be limited to after a capture for a time window.

Maybe its the fact people can sit in a manned gun and blast people out of the sky, and be killed in their pit with no kill credit for the guy that flew 15 or more miles to kill them.


While i cant sit here and deny the fact that training probably would help, i also see first hand how the basic mechanics of the game are whacked.

Ive been here 20 years, about the only thing i see different now from then, is additions to this game that take away from the action of the fight for a base.



There wasnt training when this game hit its peak, what makes people think its the ticket now?

[Mayhem]

I'm curious as to the pro and con arguments for this as I believe it would help the numbers and new player subs, however I'm aware there there could be something I'm missing.

It seems it would get a bunch of planes out of the hanger and if the FTP players could build their perks but not use them until they subbed that it might motivate them to sub.

I know there is a 2 week trial but if I came in brand new I don't think there's much chance of my being successful in 2 weeks.

I know that other WW2 sims have FTP with basic equipment and it seemed to help the numbers as they did away with FTP for about a month in one that I play and they immediately reversed course when they saw the drop in numbers.

Looking for constructive input please...

I think your idea has potential however as some one who has gone through the BS that was SWTOR letting people into a subscription based game on a Free to play or freemium bases brings in a lot of Toxicity from Free2play players and resentment from the paying subscriber player.

Look at the problems your going to have with handles Alone .... freemuim players will take just about every good handle not nailed down. Personally I think if this were to become a thing Free2play players handles should be limited to per-generated handles similar to the Numbered CPID's of the old GEnie days (Ya I know I'm really hitting on the way back machine with this one).

I would be very Leary of any free to play system that didn't come with some sort of investment simply because of the type of players it attracts.

[Slade]

No one can be beast mode in these 2 planes. Therefore older players coming back wouldn't be able "game" it.

Cool idea on letting new folks use the two planes. 

[Razorbak]

This is a great game but until someone puts out some marketing dollars you can forget about new players, do a search on google for ww2 flying games and it doesn't even show up on the list.

[ULPink]

I remember this discussion and it seems like I good idea.
But without having aircraft restricted by ENY I don't see a reason a person would move. What I'm trying to understand is why one would leave a country that has a massive number advantage to go flying the same plane against a massive number of enemies. Maybe I'm missing something?

Being on the side with the high number means longer flights, fighting your team for kills, and less fun.  Being outnumbered means you are in a fight as soon as you take off, more targets, more fun.  Depends on your personality, I guess, which side you wish to be on.  I noticed the common denominator between some of the best in the game who can kill me at will, Lazer, Rud3boi, Trogdor... seem to prefer to fly where they have an advantage in numbers, stay higher than the enemy or climb away when outnumbered, swoop in and kill enemies engaged in a fight with their teammates and grab a lot of kills to their deaths.  I guess if score matters that is the smartest way to fly. 

I have tried it and it was easy to get 5 kills in five minutes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlDnljoTvBE  That is its own kind of fun.  But crazy people like me enjoy turn fighting with three to try and kill all three or more.  Unfortunately, sometimes someone swoops in out of nowhere to get the easy kill, which is my fault for flying dumb, but it involves a smaller skillset to do that.  Now most of the better players can also fight well 1v1, but that is a very rare situation in this game, and no one wants to go to match play, except for BW1stpar, Eagler, and Rud3boi occasionally...lol 

I already knew how to fly real planes before I started Aces High and players a little Il2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and DCS (F-15c and F-16 now) SO coming into the game it was more a matter of understanding how the guns shoot and what each plane can and cannot do in
the game performance-wise.  It would be very nice to see a list of best climb speeds, the best rate of turn speeds, best corner speeds, weaknesses of each plane, and the strengths of each plane at different altitudes; maybe one exists? 

I think that I may be able to get my uncle to make a really comprehensive video guide for new players with a little help with some basic ACM and tactics to keep them alive long enough to at least be the swoop and kill pilot for a while as they get better.  Nothing feels better than seeing your first 2 kills show up in the game when you finally land a couple.

I like the idea of giving people maybe a Spit 5, M3, M4 tanks, Jeeps, a Hurricane off of carriers, C47s, Fis, Lancasters, PT Boats for free will give everyone else a lot of targets and will eventually get them the skills they need to want to fly higher performance aircraft.  My uncle said you once had 2 servers with 800+ players in each...we could get there again!

Il2 you pay once and buy your planes....they have tens of thousands of players but for some reason, it is not as fun as this game.  Maybe because you get to know everyone pretty well and can push their buttons to get them angry enough to want to fight, I don't know...  <S>

Back to studying...miss you all!

[ULPink]

Sounds like.....  Free Yak-3's!!     

Oh dear God, no!  These planes are super uber, in this game anyway...!  They should all be perked!   People will never learn anything if a plane like this does everything for them.

I started with the Spit9 in the game and was called a spitdweeb and you can get out of your trainer no...  But once you get into a fight, you have to kill everybody trying to kill you or you will not make it home.

A Yak can out turn a spitfire, out climb it, the gun round feels like 37mm if it hits you, and you can always opt to run home from nearly every plane in the game if it gets too scary to fight.  It is the first plane I landed 6 kills in one sortie and I felt like I was cheating using it.

Please perk those things and no free yak3s, they are already waaaaay over used!

[hazmatt]

Thanks for all who contributed. I don't see why it would hurt to bring something like this online as a trial and see if it works. God knows dar/kill spammer/eny and other things have all been tried but of course that's up to HT.

I was thinking that instead of the 35-40 ENY planes maybe add one mid-war plane from each country in addition to say 40 ENY planes?

Maybe something like:
Spit5 or 9
09F or G
Ki-61
Yak9T
D-11

[Vinkman]

Agreed.

Training arena may need a section with AI and a setup that registers hits. I know you can hear them but maybe a scoring system for hits to help know how well they are hitting in practice. As it is, there is never anyone in there to work with new folks. At least AI with scoring hits would help some with practice. Nothing is actually shot down, just hits scored/counted.

I think the learning curve is less about gunnery and more about..

1) view system (so yo actually have some SA)
2) Control Set up (So you can effectively work planes, vehicles, gunners, etc..)
3) Game rules/Objective. (How comms work, how much ords breaks what, what buildings control what, how troops work, how spawns work, how spawn camping works, how dar-bars work, etc, etc...

People come into this game and are completely ineffective even trying to do the simplest things. Training would sort of work but that too is not an intuitive thing to set up.

It would be a lot of work but the game would benefit from a Game mode that new planers play through and it teaches you how to set up views, controls, and game objectives..
I imagine there is a lot of trepidation by a new player to have to start asking everyone for help as soon as they get in a new game.

New player after he tries for a an hour or so and is lost..."Hey can someone stop playing and help me for a few hours to figure out how to play?" 

Not an effective system 

[Cluzig]

Ensure part of the play through tutorials include a rocket tank to blow up a town and it's guns.
A 10k start off point with a fully loaded jug over a CV which you've to land 2.5k ord on.
These were actual things I did in the main arena as I learned the game.
A wirbel mission to shoot incoming dive bombers.

The good players will figure most out themselves but enabling sites may help total noobs a lot.

Crunchy stuff and fun stuff.

[Shuffler]

I think the learning curve is less about gunnery and more about..

1) view system (so yo actually have some SA)
2) Control Set up (So you can effectively work planes, vehicles, gunners, etc..)
3) Game rules/Objective. (How comms work, how much ords breaks what, what buildings control what, how troops work, how spawns work, how spawn camping works, how dar-bars work, etc, etc...

People come into this game and are completely ineffective even trying to do the simplest things. Training would sort of work but that too is not an intuitive thing to set up.

It would be a lot of work but the game would benefit from a Game mode that new planers play through and it teaches you how to set up views, controls, and game objectives..
I imagine there is a lot of trepidation by a new player to have to start asking everyone for help as soon as they get in a new game.

New player after he tries for a an hour or so and is lost..."Hey can someone stop playing and help me for a few hours to figure out how to play?" 

Not an effective system 

Oh definitely not the total package.... just a start. I agree on some training regimen to go through. One setup in sections. As you complete a section, you get perks or a piece of candy (plug in whatever you think may work).

Many would probably skip the training. As was the case when the training arena was pretty active. The few that would actually want to learn would be the one's who might stay awhile longer and go through the training.

[Cluzig]

Make the training mandatory. I can give an extremely good example where this was done in a browser game called Quakelive which was basically a very tuned version of Quake 3 with it's best mods.

Quake was ferociously competitive for years with big prize pools and to be able to move at speed via strafe jumping was a must to be in anyways good or play at a decent level.  The noobs caught up quickly from years of demos and footage of old.
Tutorials helped but ultimately Quakelive enforced a tutorial that you had to pass in order to proceed to play online.

How many people who try aces high are first time flyers?
Knowing the answer to that could help design the difficulty or help level required.
I won't try to explain a strange jump but it's like a quick swing of 90 degrees and for comparisons sake to aces high would be akin to being able to take off and land in a plane producing a lot of torque.

[Vinkman]

Call Of Duty, Halo, every game has mode like that. might be a lot of work for the coder however.