CraterMA isnt perfect but....

[fudgums]

Yea..same question. Even the fighters like battles. 30v1 isn’t a battle

[oTRALFZo]

Today too many people are afraid to die, or just dont want to work for the base. You are the same. Saturday night youd come in to take a base, white flag it in your 600 bombers you fly and then leave if you survived. If the defense stopped the attack/base grab, you would all disappear and move 200 miles away and try another base on the other front, or try to sneak one on the same front but far away from the last attack.

As opposed to attacking a virtual non defended front with 80 guys dropping hangers or vulching.

[The Fugitive]

Ive been the under dog many many a time. If Im not flying with my squad I do the same thing as Eagler, find a dar bar and fly over there. Im sorry if when my squad gets together it becomes too much for some of you. But as a squad, you wont find us backing down or switching fronts because the defense shows up. JG11 seems to like spoiling our plans on Thursday night. Its more fun when there are defenders..... tho fighting jets all the time gets old 

Honest question Fugi, but in these battles you so enjoy, when was that last time you did not out number your opponents?

As Im am a war type player numbers are good. On the other hand we dont always have the numbers. Sometimes skill can out weigh numbers.

Yea..same question. Even the fighters like battles. 30v1 isn’t a battle

I think the radar isssue could help there. Like LilMak said in a big battle like that you have to work the outside edges and drag a guy or two away from the pack. You cant just dive in with your hair on fire and expect to come out on top. Just like an F4F fighting a K4 takes a certain strategy so does fighting more than one other guy.

As opposed to attacking a virtual non defended front with 80 guys dropping hangers or vulching.

The "Puppies" regroup and hit it again, verses run away. The only time Ive seen our guys change plan is when the defense is coming from too many bases and they split up to pork a couple to narrow down were the defense can come from.

The game is what you make it. If you cant get your team together to grab bases, get a few guy together to defend bases. 2 or 3 guys can mess up a mission by dropping the right guy at the right time. An M3 here, a goon there, or a set of bomber just before they drop.  Stop trying to pick as many kills as you can, stop worrying about dying and hurting your score. Concentrate on breaking up the mission. Sure your going to die. Last tour I didnt get as many sorties due to a vacatio in there but of the 75 I did get I died almost 50 of them, but I had fun 

[MDStampf93]

JG11 seems to like spoiling our plans on Thursday night. Its more fun when there are defenders..... tho fighting jets all the time gets old 

I wouldn’t say it’s ALL the time, just most of the time 

[Greebo]

This thread started me thinking about CraterMA and although I'm not overly keen on wrestling with the Terrain Editor and submissions process again I do find it sad that my map a source of frustration for many players these days. So below are a couple of map images I have made to show both the current version and what I think a revised version could look like. To get round the problem of this being AH's default terrain I'd probably have to rename it to something else, perhaps just "Crater" or maybe "CalderaMA". That way Hitech could just replace CraterMA in the rotation with the new version without it affecting the base game download.

The main differences on the new version are as follows:-

Fewer bases which should reduce the time the map is in the rotation.

No super large airfields.

Removed many of the front line airfields to concentrate the players into a smaller area.

Added three airfields inside the crater.

Created a single chain of V bases running outside of the ring of airbases with limited spawns to the airfields.

Grouped the factory strats around each City with its two flak bases and surrounding uncapturable airbases.

I can replace two of each country's four CV fleets with BB fleets, probably the two nearest the front lines. HTC are not keen on more fleets than the 12 this map has for frame rate reasons, so no additional fleets.

The idea here is that much of the time a player will only be able to choose between one of three nearby enemy airfields or 3 or 4 GV spawn points, one per front line plus tank/fighter town. More if there is also an enemy fleet close to a base. This limited choice should make it more likely a moderate darbar will generate and encourage more players to up or spawn in, either to attack or defend. Having fewer bases and spawns does makes it easier for bombers to shut down a country's front line bases so I could replace the medium air bases just behind each front line with large ones to make this harder. The crater airbases will get likely taken a lot so I'd place the SPs from outside bases higher than the crater bases to make it easier to retake them.

I'd welcome constructive criticism for this revised map, both what you do like and what you don't. Not expecting a universal consensus (this is the AH BBS after all) but am willing to make changes for a good idea or if enough people think a change needed. If there is enough support here for a revised map I'll put the idea to Hitech and if he is agreeable I'll start work on it.

Proposed revised CraterMA.




Existing CraterMA for comparison.

[JimmyD3]

I like it. You might consider moving the HQ's farther inland, if you plan on adding Battle Ships to the map.

[mERv]

I wouldn’t say it’s ALL the time, just most of the time 

Whoever doesnt welcome engagements with WW2 jets on a frequent basis is MEDIOCRE! 

What do we say to the God of Duece's? Not today!

[DmonSlyr]

This thread started me thinking about CraterMA and although I'm not overly keen on wrestling with the Terrain Editor and submissions process again I do find it sad that my map a source of frustration for many players these days. So below are a couple of map images I have made to show both the current version and what I think a revised version could look like. To get round the problem of this being AH's default terrain I'd probably have to rename it to something else, perhaps just "Crater" or maybe "CalderaMA". That way Hitech could just replace CraterMA in the rotation with the new version without it affecting the base game download.

The main differences on the new version are as follows:-

Fewer bases which should reduce the time the map is in the rotation.

No super large airfields.

Removed many of the front line airfields to concentrate the players into a smaller area.

Added three airfields inside the crater.

Created a single chain of V bases running outside of the ring of airbases with limited spawns to the airfields.

Grouped the factory strats around each City with its two flak bases and surrounding uncapturable airbases.

I can replace two of each country's four CV fleets with BB fleets, probably the two nearest the front lines. HTC are not keen on more fleets than the 12 this map has for frame rate reasons, so no additional fleets.

The idea here is that much of the time a player will only be able to choose between one of three nearby enemy airfields or 3 or 4 GV spawn points, one per front line plus tank/fighter town. More if there is also an enemy fleet close to a base. This limited choice should make it more likely a moderate darbar will generate and encourage more players to up or spawn in, either to attack or defend. Having fewer bases and spawns does makes it easier for bombers to shut down a country's front line bases so I could replace the medium air bases just behind each front line with large ones to make this harder. The crater airbases will get likely taken a lot so I'd place the SPs from outside bases higher than the crater bases to make it easier to retake them.

I'd welcome constructive criticism for this revised map, both what you do like and what you don't. Not expecting a universal consensus (this is the AH BBS after all) but am willing to make changes for a good idea or if enough people think a change needed. If there is enough support here for a revised map I'll put the idea to Hitech and if he is agreeable I'll start work on it.

Proposed revised CraterMA.

(Image removed from quote.)


Existing CraterMA for comparison.

(Image removed from quote.)

Yes!  thank you for this Greebo. While I do wish more of the area surrounding the volcano could be removed to tighten things up, I dont know if possible. The revised version would IMO make battles feel larger fighting for the Vehicle fields. I do like the addition of fighter fields in the middle area. I would hope that more folks choose not to be in those areas anyway in order to give credence to the war battle outside the TT FT area, but does give fighters an opportunity to fight 

[Greebo]

I like it. You might consider moving the HQ's farther inland, if you plan on adding Battle Ships to the map.

Thanks, that's something I hadn't considered as battleships were introduced after I last worked on terrains. What is the maximum effective range of the battleship's guns in the game?

I could just move the HQs over to the cluster of other strats. However now I think about it having all the strats grouped together so tightly would probably cause frame rate issues for players with marginal PCs. I vaguely recall that's why HTC dropped the super large all-in-one strat cities that AH II used to have in the first place. So I will likely have to spread them out a bit more than on the revised map. Perhaps into groups of two strats, a flak base and a V base (for radar coverage) with the three clusters sited mid way between the three uncapturable bases.

[Greebo]

Yes!  thank you for this Greebo. While I do wish more of the area surrounding the volcano could be removed to tighten things up, I dont know if possible. The revised version would IMO make battles feel larger fighting for the Vehicle fields. I do like the addition of fighter fields in the middle area. I would hope that more folks choose not to be in those areas anyway in order to give credence to the war battle outside the TT FT area, but does give fighters an opportunity to fight 

I suspect some GVers won't be happy with the fighter town bases but given player numbers I think they are needed to kick start the aerial fight outside of peak hours. If there was some sort of air base without ordnance bunkers that would be ideal, but sadly we don't have that.

I think at least two choices of spawn and nearby airfield between each pair of countries is necessary otherwise it becomes too easy to shut the fight down. FT/TT plus one choice of each per front line is the minimum for this. The thing about not having spawns to every nearby field is it makes some fields strategically important, the second V base in from the front line will likely become a much fought over spot for instance.

[Dadtallica]

Airfields without ords is an interesting idea.

Perhaps the mapmakers can disable them at certain fields?

[Greebo]

Only thing a mapmaker can disable at a field are which rides can up there (no Me 163 etc.) While he could create a custom airbase that lacked ords it wouldn't be allowed on an MA terrain because of the risk of it introducing a bug that crashes the arena. It would need HTC themselves to create such a base and I can't see that happening.

[Animl-AW]

Stripping ords from bases sounds so arcade. We do need a level of reality in the MA, IMO.

No offense, but most ideas I read removes a challenge, a game without challenge is not a good game.

Perking all planes except your own choice is a great example.

Frankly, if there is no challenge I’m not interested.

Its all setting wack-a-mole work-around to the real problem, numbers.
On my video comments several of 10k say they didn’t know the game still exist or happy it does and want to return. Yall stopped getting the word out. Ya don’t have to “sell” it, simply let people know it still exist.

We need to be above critical mass of 120 for the game and maps to work as designed.

Setting wack-a-mole is the lazy way out. Stop stupid stuff like full country hording that chase players out is a good start.

Frankly, I don’t want to be the only one doing the leg work just to get bashed from the unappreciates who do nothing but complain how someone does something they refuse to do.

Let others know when events are happening, its your top “sales” point, exploit it.

Anyone who thinks what I do/did is for some form of attension is lost in themselves. Why I quit, if thats what you think then you do it.

Never ever even once did I ever get pushback from the AW crowd, not once. Its rampant here. I do it so I have a game to play, I should have done it in shades. I became repulsed which makes Animl haters happy, they are your enemy of numbers in the first place.

[Greebo]

The crater airbases without ords idea was an offhand remark, I wasn't seriously expecting it to happen. Having said that I think in this case it would add a challenge for those people who wanted to take out TT GVs from these airbases. They'd have to use tank busting planes like the Il-2, Ju 87G and Hurri IID rather than just dropping 1K bombs on them. Taking out the other airbases would be more about covering your attacking GVs from the air and less about bombing the base flat.

I agree numbers is the real problem but I think map design can help here. Currently players log in outside of peak hours and see half a dozen tiny dar bars across the long front line and just log off again. The chances of getting a decent fight are just too small to make it worth the time to investigate. If all those tiny dar bars were compressed into one bigger one though they'd be more likely to up. This then becomes a benign circle, more players upping mean a bigger darbar that means more players upping and so on.

[Animl-AW]

I’m not a GVer, my opinions on how maps work would just add to the GVer vs Pilot bias. That does exist.

IMO, any large change is very risky. They always get bigger reactions than predicted, sometimes not good.

On bbs we’re probably at 10% of all players that voice opinions. I would not consider these few speak for the masses. I can get different input on 200.

I think maps should bend to the current average numbers, but leave buffer room for higher peak numbers. The way the MA plays varies sharply on number count. Above 120 it’s a different game. Tweaks yes, big changes, nope. IMO

Thats how far I can go. I’m not involved in the mechanics and idiosyncrasies of any one map. It’s either fun or it’s not.

A life time ago, when I had some control of main arena settings, I gave the players exactly what they begged for for a long time,…it took 2 months to create and test, once they got exactly what they asked for they didn’t like it in RR arenas, full realism praised it. Biggest complaint, realistic “made kills harder” <blank stare>

Input is very haphazard, careful how you waste time. No haphazard changes. Study the situation, make your case, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. Most don’t with the whole masses. We make educated guesses, HT has data streams. I’m a data guy. Math is absolute.

Preaching to the choir actually. Sorry.

If we only listen to the masses stop signs and lights would be removed, negative impact. Players should not make decisions, ever.

That drivel said, what ever truly makes the full masses happy and better game play has my unsolicited support. <shrug> but it’s a rarity.