bishops numbers are a gameplay problem

[Maverick]

Bish have been down in numbers all day today, Saturday the 14th. They are still down and the arena has been reset. The dominant numbers team is the nits with about a 1.3 advantage over the bish alone and this is AFTER the reset. If you don't like the numbers swap countries or log. squeaking about it won't do any good as HT has already gone on record ans not having less than 3 countries. Just deal with it. Its a freaking GAME for crying out loud.

[715]

I've been wondering about arena numbers lately as well.  During the times I log on (mid to late evening Pacific) lately, there has always been a decided Knight advantage over both Bishop and Rook, sometimes two to one.  In addition, closer inspection shows that there are way more coordinated squad members flying for Knights than for either Rook or Bishop: a few nights ago there were 7 Knight squads up with 4 or more members flying and only two Rook and one Bishop.  Tonight there were 7 Knight, 3 Rook, and 4 Bishop with total squad members (4 or more per squad) of 62 Knight, 8 Rook, and 27 Bishop.  That means the Knights are often conducting well planned coordinated base grabbing attacks with overwhelming odds which makes it tiresome to be a heavily outnumbered Bishop (or, I suspect, Rook) defender.*

Does anyone know why so many active squads pick Knight?  Back in AirWarrior the sides were given generic letters, A, B, and C and still people would associate characteristics with the players of each side.  Warbirds had colors, and again sides took on characteristics: green were Kermits, purple Barneys, reds Commies, and Gold.. well they had the aura of being the "best".  Now we have chess based names.  But while "Knights" has an almost perfect ring to it (warrior defenders against barbarian attackers), the other two are less than inspiring.  "Bishops" are guys in satin robes who wear funny pointy hats and have no military power, and "Rooks" are, well, inanimate objects (castle towers) and basically useless (well, OK, I'm not a very good chess player).  I wonder if the names have any subconcious effect on peoples choice of sides?

*PS- Before complaining about team members who appear to be attacking what you consider to be the  "wrong" side, consider what you are asking.  In tonights case, if you were a Bishop asking other Bishops to ignore the Rooks and defend against Knights, you are asking people to fly against overwhelming odds- sometimes as many as 30 Knights attacking one base.  The likely outcome will be constant death and a Knight reset anyway.  Why not just let the people who choose to avoid that, and have fun elsewhere until the reset, do their own thing.  I personally hate taking on hopeless odds and dying repeatedly for virtually no reason.  If you like that, more power to you, you're a better man than I am Gunga Din, but don't call me a moron for not following you.  You can't win against overwhelming odds, especially when applied as squad coordinated attacks, so let people have their fun elsewhere if they choose.

[Karnak]

My side name-thought association theory (I've held it for a long time):

Knights = German teutonic Knights, defending against the barbarian hordes; The flower of England in the form of the Knights of the Round Table; Knight's Cross (and associated versions) medal of Germany (I think this plays a part in the LW fans selection of the Knits).

Bishops = Religious leadership, perhaps wisdom; warm feelings for some religious people; uncomfortable feelings for some athiests and people with a private sense of the spiritual (silly as it is, I feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of flying for a religious figure as the name has more impact than does the symbol).

Rooks = Masonry; castles; bird rookeries?

(715, I always did best with my Rooks, even bettter than with my Queen.  I once got a friend so frusterated that he placed my King onthe board, surrounded it with his Pawns, placed all his other pieces randomly about the board and placed one random piece of mine, a Rook, on the board in a random location.  I won.)

[mipoikel]

Originally posted by stegor


Anyway, too much bishes? Just improve your aiming an shot them the more you can:D

Btw   Pacau:)  

My stats:

Country Kills As          Kills Of
Bishop          0                134
Knight          0                   47
Rook         181                   0

[mkuebeler]

Originally posted by 715
Does anyone know why so many active squads pick Knight?  Back in AirWarrior the sides were given generic letters, A, B, and C and still people would associate characteristics with the players of each side.  Warbirds had colors, and again sides took on characteristics: green were Kermits, purple Barneys, reds Commies, and Gold.. well they had the aura of being the "best".  Now we have chess based names.  But while "Knights" has an almost perfect ring to it (warrior defenders against barbarian attackers), the other two are less than inspiring.  "Bishops" are guys in satin robes who wear funny pointy hats and have no military power, and "Rooks" are, well, inanimate objects (castle towers) and basically useless (well, OK, I'm not a very good chess player).  I wonder if the names have any subconcious effect on peoples choice of sides?

Not a bad theory.  In real life most of us aren't much more than Pawns, so it must give some people a warm fuzzy feeling to escape reality and be "Knights" for a few hours.

Personaly, I think they're simply lame idiots who gravitated to the number heavy side because it almost guarantees winning the game without having to work too hard at it.  Nothing more complex than that. I've taken part in two Rook resets when we had a rare numerical advantage that the Knit-wits seem to enjoy most evenings (US time), and frankly it wasn't much of a challenge.  Mob a base, vulch anything that tries to leave the ground until all the hangars can be destroyed, cart a few loads of troops in.  Rinse.  Repeat, ad nauseum.  I can't imagine the sort of person who would find that appealing on a regular basis, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want one as a friend.

On the other hand, I've got nothing but the highest respect for the Rooks who continue to fight against overwhelming odds night after night.  They don't do it because they like being the underdogs.  I think they do it because the alternative (jumping sides or logging off) is simply distasteful.  

Hope this works, never tried inserting an image before.  This famous cartoon sums up the Rook strength of character for me:

[stegor]

In real life most of us aren't much more than Pawns, so it must give some people a warm fuzzy feeling to escape reality and be "Knights" for a few hours.

,

Personaly, I think they're simply lame idiots who gravitated to the number heavy side because it almost guarantees winning the game without having to work too hard at it

BTW we all are here to forget reality for some moments; we all are here dreaming a little to be real WWII fighting ace, we are here to return at our young age when we had less worries; its part of the game, cause this is a game.
So we dont need drastical  judging neither psychological explanation, just try to face it all with a smile  not with hard words

[KNIFE]

well i dont mind being the underdog but a problem that i dont like much is people jumping sides to stop a reset.i feel there should be a cost in perks if you leive your side.so if your a bishup and your fixin to loose and want to jump to a rook to help stop the rest it should cost and the cost should be high.aliences are part of war but they should come with a cost.

[Kweassa]

Smiling for 12 months gets your facial muscles cramped.

 They twist and warp, and finally it turns into a

  ....   frown

[nucks]

The solution is simple.  A perk point multilpier based upon the current population ratio. For example:

Bishops - 300 pilots
Knights - 200 pilots
Rooks - 100 pilots

If a Bishop kills a Rook, his perkies get multiplied by 1/2. If he kills a Knight he gets 2/3 of his perks.

If a Rook kills a Bishop, his perks get multiplied by 3/1.  If he kills a Knight he gets twice his perks.

The gameplay would either balance, or those in underpopulated countries would suddenly find that there fewer numbers would have much greater access to perk planes, which would help offset their numerical disadvantage.

Certainly everyone wouldn't be willing to swap sides just for perks, but my guess is that there would be enough to do so to balance things out.  And if not, the underdogs would at least have better equipment to work with.

MwNucks:D

[bockko]

I started flying as a rook after aw's demise,sad days indeed:( . Yet, this game turns out to be much better. After 8 months of gang banging, i learned a few things. 1 - there are nights when rooks got to gang; 2 - them bish/knits sure can throw up the numbers; 3 - you should pick your own side based on your own desires, nothing more, nothing less- you pay your 15 bucks just like everyone else.  4 - flying bish/knit, you can fly forever without a real fight grrrr. My squad did some moving around to learn more about the game, and we found that it is much easier to survive as a bish or knit, in general, but at any moment local odds are what count, and you can end up dead...just like in real life. #'s were imbalanced in AW, i suspect in other sims as well as AH. Pick your poison and (*$#(*)&$# what anyone else says.

[RTR]

I say we just kill all the rooks.
Problem solved

In all fairness though, its a hard thing to control.People will play on whatever side they choose, and should.
RTR

[Gooss]

everyone has one, right?

I fly Rook for the challenge.  Knights and Bishops may like the cooler names for their countries.  

My guess is they like the reset perkies even more.  

Discontinue reset perkies and I'll bet things would even out more.

Where'd that idea come from, btw?  AW didn't have resets.  Does WB?  

HONK!
Gooss

[Fancy]

For those guys talking about the subconcious reasoning for choosing a country:

Then ROOKS must be smarter because the only piece on the board more powerful is the Queen.  ROOKS (the players) know chess well enough to know this (who up there said rooks are useless....duh, think again), so we are drawn to ROOKS.  Smarter = better pilots

[Fancy]

Originally posted by Gooss
Discontinue reset perkies

I gotta give a hearty hear hear to Gooss for this one .  Why should gangbanging be promoted?

[AKWeav]

What BS:rolleyes:

Btw, taken on a weekend.