FeedBack on new Arena

[hitech]

Some people take stuff way to litterly and miss key words.

"So your guns MIGHT jam less", just giveing an example on a concept we wish to implement, and people discussing details.

How about we descuss things we like to see implemented , or ideas on how to implent the concept, instead of simple model details.

Think GAME play Not Sim.

The sim will be change slightly to improve some items but the game play side of this arena will make or brake it.

Btw I'm defining GAME here as the same as War SIM.


HiTech

[Shiva]

Originally posted by hitech
How about we descuss things we like to see implemented , or ideas on how to implent the concept, instead of simple model details.

I would suggest that, because of the difference in the types of skills involved, that you make separate rank trees for level bombing, fighter/attack, and GV 'careers'. It wasn't common for a pilot to get shifted between fighters and bombers, and between any aircraft and GVs was even rarer. This lets people create a more true-to-life career. It would also give people more freedom to pick a mission outside their normal range, knowing that they're not going to be nuking their fighter rank by getting killed in a running GV battle.

[Swoop]

HT


look, with all due.....

"So your guns MIGHT jam less"

could mean anything.  Does the MIGHT mean that you MIGHT or MIGHT not implement it or does it mean that the figures you'll be using are generated randomly?

I mean after all, gamers can be the most anal and nit-picky group of people on the planet (yeah right, like you hadn't worked THAT one out a long time ago) so of course any information issued that is unclear is going to be questioned.  What do you expect?  

[Wotan]

I think things like gun jams are fine as long as all your guns dont fail. Some planes had guns that would jam more often the others.

If this is something you really are thinking of then I think that if its universal, as it effects all planes equally, that it needs to be quite random and rare.

What would be the trigger? gs when firing or just suddenly your guns dont work?

Clearly in rl the better pilots got the better planes. But how is this going to effect the game. I mean if all the good pilots get all the good planes would this effect player numbers. If the average guy thinks he has very little chance to advance against better pilots in better performing planes how long will he fly in the mt.

With your hint about ai elements and training missions I wouldnt be to worried about that but persception may lead some not to even try.


If you decided not go inthis direction you could always prioritize missions.

Level 1 missions are for folks with xx rank

level 2

level 3 etc.

Level 1 could get the better missions with the better plane type etc. I dont how workable that would be though.

[Swoop]

Originally posted by Wotan
If the average guy thinks he has very little chance to advance against better pilots in better performing planes how long will he fly in the mt.

See this is the problem of giving little bits of information.  This rumour above will circle the world before you get up tomorrow.

[F4UDOA]

Wotan,

You said two things that are exactly what I am afraid of.



1.

If this is something you really are thinking of then I think that if its universal, as it effects all planes equally, that it needs to be quite random and rare.

I disagree. All A/C were not created equally. It is a drawback in realistic gameplay when you have NIK2's that fail at the same random rate as a F6F. In reality one was described as part of the "Grumman Iron Works" for relibility and toughness and the other was described as a pile of junk by Saburu Saki. Clearly these two A/C cannot have the same reliability issues.

2.

Clearly in rl the better pilots got the better planes.

Bad, Bad, Bad!!! No this was not right. In fact most Marine Aces that I was aware did not have personal A/C. The Greg Boyington LuLu Belle Bird was a myth. So this was not a true statement. Also maintenance was not the same in every theater. I have read the Brits did not overhaul their F4U's until 2,000hours of flight time while Navy and Marine squads overhauled them every 500Hours.

It's easy to say random failures were regular but random is not truely random.

[Wotan]

Bad, Bad, Bad!!! No this was not right. In fact most Marine Aces that I was aware did not have personal A/C. The Greg Boyington LuLu Belle Bird was a myth. So this was not a true statement. Also maintenance was not the same in every theater. I have read the Brits did not overhaul their F4U's until 2,000hours of flight time while Navy and Marine squads overhauled them every 500Hours.

My statement is true for the lw, ija and VVS though. I am sure someone will post about individual USAAF pilots whos ground crews made field mods to beef up their engs.

I dont want equal but random gun jams either. Hispanos jammed quite often. As much as folks say that this was solved it never really was. Dirt and sand getting into the gun barrels were enough cause jams and jams happened through out the war.

Performance in 2 like planes from the same squadron may perform different. Even prestine airraft off the line may have variations in performance.

The question is how much variation does ht envision. The niki is slower then any f4u and f6f. I doudt that will change. I dont think ht would cause numerous repeated eng problems in the f6f or f4u while keeping the niki at peak at all times. If these are universly random and kept somewhat rare then we really arent any worse off then what we have now with perfect eng under all conditions.

The niki btw has only a very small window be included in a set up.

Alot of what is written about plane quality I take with a grain of salt. On one side 1 guy will write "xxx was perfect I never had a problem" otoh you get the opposite "the was plagued with problems and wasnt very resistant to damage".

I see guys on here post how a p38 could fly through a telephone pole or bomber and fly home so that means the p38 was tough. They never post stories where another plane fell apart after 1 hit.

This goes for all planes. German pilots say the b24 was an easy kill, b24 pilots say the plane was tough. A "mossie is tough because look at this pic, it survived a 30mm strike" etc.....

Eng reliability is the same way. we get folks saying 262 blew up if you moved the throttle to quick or the he 177 was just fire ball. Then you see guys post the dirtect opposite.

Again I dont know what % of variation in eng performce ht has in mind but like I said if folks percieve the arena to be where a new guy gets the worse plane and the experts gets the best they may not choose to fly there.

How you go about modelling gun jams and eng reliability based mostly on anecdotal stories? I dont know. I dont think you can. But as long as the variation is minimal and the effect is rare and as close to random as possible I can live with it.

These arent immersion killers to me. And thats what appeals to me the most is immersion. Planes turned back due to problems, guns jammed etc....... As artificial as "random" effects maybe be in the game I just hope that are few and far between. I had for them to dominate gameplay.

[ramzey]

random  is best word

anyway looking back to history, most of engine damage and guns jam was not depend only from  dirt, weather etc
Most importand for that was ground crew.
At start all polish squadrons ground crew  in UK have huge numbers of brits mechanics, and lots of technical problems with aircraft.
When polish crews fully take care about technical condition, most of engine failure and guns jam  gone. For both bombers and fighters squadrons.

And as history show every aircraft have your own "soul", even 2 spits/hurris produced same day , same factory not fly the same.

If/when HT give us smth like that will be great.


I dont understand/like one part posted by HT

5. If your points go to 0 you are demoted back to a cadet and have to go back threw training.

everyone somtimes die, but make traning once again?
not better to use this ppl as recon pilots or for SAR mission?.

Its not whine, i think. But not everyone can be fighter ace, and as u know bombers get allways heavy losses. Mby som ppl wonna help others and make recon missions over enemy teritory. Or patrol mission for rescue downed pilots on sea. Thats kinde of service was great part of history ww2. Recon mission are easy to plug in AH  and not need many changes with current bomb system. /if somone ask, "how u imagine that?", i make post with examples/

About SAR we read many post, but i dont know any online sim who have smth like that.

Both make game more RL

greetings
ramzey

[Achttag]

Yup Ramzey SAR is still a good idea, even though its been mentioned a zillion times before. And would fit in well in AcesII because there would be a really good reason for it. You pickup a downed countryman in your -very unsubtle request coming- Catalina, he gets to keep his rank and points, and maybe you get a few too for a successful rescue.

I vote search and rescue in as a feature please, along with all those others who have asked for it in the past. Only problem with it would be land rescue with the C47. I mean the current bizarre and unrealistic trees/rocks generation on the users FE. Perhaps the "totally different terrains" Hitech mentioned in another post could include sensible positioning (ie proper forests and stuff) and generated from the AH server end. If thats possible also please, for a whole ton of oft-heard reasons. (is it allowed to have more than one request in a post, sry HT).

Anyone disagree?

Achttag
<>

[hitech]

Gentlemen realize there will be a lot of AI bombers & Vehicles controled by the host only. They will be what lead an attack type mission.

This realy is a must for the game because it is what provides targets so that one persone dosn't have to die for every kill.

The success of the attack mission can then be how well you defended the bombers, and not how many planes you shot down. I.E. Just chacing off the defender is a success.

As a defender your mission will be successful based on how well you stoped the attack. Think of  if it in terms of 20% of the bomber force destroyed, the defender mission was a success.

Notice you didn't have to kill any real player on either offense or defense to succede.

With out this one concept in the game there is no way to put a hi penalty on dieing, and hence a desire to live.  By simply adjusting the points per mission / points lost for death we can control this incentive to live. The back to training is needed for a 2nd LT death, btw a 1st LT 0 points would just return you to a 2nd LT, because with out it there would not be a real penalty for a 2nd LT death.

This is just a basic outline,im sure details will change on how you recieve mission points, like a bonus for killing a buff or fighter or high ranking player.

Also keep in mind this realy is a new game, and will be completly different than the MA, i.e. base capture,strat like the main,war win & reset,vulching, will not be there.


HiTech

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by hitech
This is just a basic outline,im sure details will change on how you recieve mission points, like a bonus for killing a buff or fighter or high ranking player.

Something like this might be the answer to the concerns I voiced in another thread about unrealistic flying as a result of a high death penalty but a low mission victory reward (or no mission failure penalty).  

What if bonus points were awarded in a graduated manner based on mission performance?  So a bare minimum for defense success would be 20% enemies killed, but a maximum would be 100% enemies killed.  This maximum outcome would score many more mission points than the bare minimum, perhaps enough to offset the cost of death itself.  Thus while runners could flee all they want, the rewards as well as the dangers of aggressively pursuing mission objectives pay off.

In other words, the quicker path to rank advancement would be aggressiveness and self-preservation instead of merely playing the numbers.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[hitech]

Theres a balance between those Dead Man,what your talking about is more akin to MA play, death in the mission has to have a large penalty to make back up. Want to have the feeling that you are forced to engage,but will want to live.

HiTech

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by hitech
Theres a balance between those Dead Man,what your talking about is more akin to MA play, death in the mission has to have a large penalty to make back up. Want to have the feeling that you are forced to engage,but will want to live.

What I'm suggesting would do that (hopefully) without turning it into an MA-style arena.  Mainly what it would do is reduce the cost of dying with graduated mission success... in essence rewarding sticking to the mission objectives.  So killing 90% of buffs while dying might cost 15 career points instead of 100 when everything is said and done.  On the other hand, surviving such an encounter could yield 85 career points, thus creating the dual incentives of sticking around to complete the mission objectives (since this substantially increases rewards) while still keeping the incentive to live (as there are still costs associated with dying).

-- Todd/Leviathn

[F4UDOA]

Gentlemen realize there will be a lot of AI bombers & Vehicles controled by the host only. They will be what lead an attack type mission.

This is huge!! This idea I luv!!

Hopefully there will be no distinction between icons of manned A/C and unmanned A/C. I do have a few questions though.

1. Will there be a distinction between live players and drones?

2. Will there be drone fighters as well? Does this mean HTC is going to right AI code? Holey moley;)

3. Will there be a change in the IFF type icons? Such as fighter instead of La-7 at D2.0 or greater. Or FW190 instead of TA-152 at D1.0 or greater. Also no range data inside 1,000yards?

4. Will a player be able to switch between his A/C and a drone A/C? Probably not I'm guessing for scoring reasons.


HT/Wotan,

I think I am explaining something wrong. When I say I don't like random failures in the NIK2 and Hellcat being the same I mean the same frequency. Such as if the F6F has a random engine gun or hydraulic malfunction in 1 of every 10 sorties then the NIK2 should have 3 times as many per same number of sorties. The reason being one was far more reliable. The reliability % of these A/C I feel should be independent of gameplay considerations with maybe a 5% shift in performance up or down depending on your A/C per sortie which would be historically accurate. However reliability should be left unique to each individual A/C based on real wartime performance IMHO.

BTW Hitech,

I have very detailed numbers from the Navy on losses per sortie of each individual A/C. If you want them I can post them or email them. The document is quite large.

And thanks for the frequent updates. It is greatly appreciated!!

[MWHUN]

I still seem to be missing a key concept about this design.  What is going to prevent the same folks that love to “pork and auger” from doing this in a detrimental way in the mission theater?  Other than busting them down and keeping them at 2nd Lt. for their entire virtual lives –what other penalties will they face.  I.E. What does having a higher rank get me that a 2nd Lt. would not have access too?

Hope that makes sense…