Cool hardware without strat is such a waste

[ICEWIND]

Hallo,
       I also think putting  strategic elements in AH as said earlier would be a great idea. But I think the biggest problem would be organizing and coordinating such strategic scenarios for the Team of AH.
I’m sure there would also be some origination and  coordinating  problems with the players  them selves. But the implementation of all these ideas in AH would be a great challenge for all of the HiTech Creations  Team. But I am sure when time comes they will get a grip and develop AH in  a revolutionary game. Besides this, it is a positive symbol that all the players demand so much because it shows how much potential AH still has and that the people feel the greatness of the game.

(This does sound paradox now but I will write it anyway. Personally I think its better for AH to present a idea rather than running after someone hoping he or she will accept it.)

[Jigster]

Well...we could have military fire trucks that help put out fires. That would decrease rebuilding time. Plus it would give the capturing force something else to shoot at  

heheheh you could "delay" paratroopers too  

- Jig
"Should I take a M-16 or a WC-3?"
"Well on paper the water cannon is a far more effective weapon."

[Cabby]

Quote:

"Funny how ive heard this cry before and then i look how very few time's people use the strat elements that are already in the game.

What Hitech sez is true.

Unfortunately, only a small segment of game-players online at any given moment are interested in "Strategy".  The majority of players want to yank 'n bank and blow stuff up willy-nilly without regard to the effect on the "War".  Not that there is anything wrong with that

Strategy almost has to be forced upon the players.  And no matter what form any Strat may take, a percentage of players will whine and raise hell about it interfering with their "fun".

AH needs a lot more planes modeled, refined terrains, ships/additional vehicles, and a "WWII Arena" similar in concept to the one in WB's.  Then you have a place for the experienced "Vets" and "Historical" nuts to play as an alternative to the MA Concept.

The Main Arena Concept is stale for most long time online simmers.  To keep these players interested and forking-over their cash, a game needs more impovement than just adding plane-varients and pretty ground-objects now and then.

Cabby

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=44th FS "VAMPIRES"=
"The Jungle Air Force"
Welcome To The Jungle!!!"

[typhoonc]

Take the vehicle fields for this example.  They do a great job of bringing field capture down to a level of difficulty that allows a moderately experienced player to have an effect on the game by themselves.  They can fly out, kill the ack and hanger, and then bring a C-47 back and capture it by themselves, and get a feeling of accomplishment.  

   If there was a way, as someone else suggested, to have smaller cities here and there, and some kind of supply line structure, it would allow individuals to take part in the stratiegic element of the game.  Right now, the reason that the lone wolfs don't take part in the stratiegic element is that it's simply inaccessable to them.  They can't capture airfields, and the only things left are V fields and furballing.  

       Basically, if there is a stratiegic element that can be added that is accessable to a lone decent pilot, then it would be a great addition to the arena.  

[llbm_MOL]

Well Im with banana on this. Last nite(yeah one of these stupid stories) I was flying Bishop and trying to take A32. We had almost 10 to 1 odds and a small determined opposing force was able to hold of a massive force. We never took the base. The rebuild times on the all the hangers is way to fast. The amount of ordinance to take out a hanger is WAY TO FRIGGIN HIGH! Lets look at this. A cloth tent set up for the Vehicles take 20 HE shells from a Panzer to knock down! It takes 3!!! direct hits from 1000lbs bomb to kill it? Whats wrong with this picture? its the same with the BH and FH. As for knocking out the city or HQ of the opposeing force...we only had three bases left and there was no one that wanted to fly for an hour in a B17 to hit their HQ and only do minimal damage to the target. They probably wouldnt have made it to the HQ before getting killed anyway.

I say we increase the build up time for hangers and if people want to speed it up develope a ground and air transport system. M3's that carry supplies and c47's. you pick the supplies from the hanger, fuel,hanger building supplies,ack replacment guns,etc... This doesnt require new vehicls or planes to immplement only new programing to incorporate it. I'm not sure what that will take as I'm not a programmer but I could believe we could have it by the next version?    

I say we take baby steps people. Just modify what you have then SLOWLY work more strat in each version. Lets get AI trians in after this and then add or take away what they a capable of doing. Then maybe and AI truck system later on down the line with cites and supply depots..... one step at a time?


LLB OUT!!!!

[This message has been edited by llbm_MOL (edited 08-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by llbm_MOL (edited 08-06-2000).]

[Bluefish]

A few thoughts on strategy generally:

1.  HT is certainly right; there are a large number of strategic elements currently built into MA play but they are woefully underutilized.  One must therefore ask, why is this so?

2.  One reason may be that some elements of strat are undocumented and therefore little known. One of these apparently involves exactly how many pounds of bombs it takes to destroy what type of structure.  Another involves the availablility of GLARS and others extremely useful maps (pretty hard to have strat w/o maps, but there's no reference to them anywhere on the strat page on the HT site).  Finally, it should be noted that there are no strat-related questions in the FAQs on the HT site.

3.  That said, however, I don't personally think that lack of knowledge is the primary issue.  There is simply no incentive within the structure of the game for participating in strategic gameplay.  All of the strat works toward giving one side or another an advantage for winning the "war", but why should anyone particularly care?  When one war ends another starts, and I don't think there is even a record anywhere of which side won how many "wars" (not that I think such a record would be much of an incentive).

4.  A number of the suggestions for strat seem to come under the category of "give us new and interesting types of targets to shoot at (trains, ships, etc)."  I find these very appealing (I'd love to have more things to shoot at, although my odds of hitting them are probably pretty slim) but I don't think they would affect the fundamental problem.

5.  So, the issue seems to be, how to incorporate a strategic element in the MA (or if not the MA, in an arena that was available on a 24/7 basis rather than in specific limited time frames like scenarios) that would so involve players as to affect the way they play the game.  I understand that the late lamented Confirmed Kill game was intended to have a sceario-based main arena- does anyone know how they were planning to do it?  

[Sparks]

First I'm with banana as well.

HT - I agree that Strat is already included in the game but I do believe that it is under utilised for two reasons:-
1. Some people just don't give a damn about strat (my personal guess is 60-70%).
2. Those that do give a damn find the current strat model doesn't suit their wishes - and I include myself in this group.

I posted a thread in the "Gameplay and Feedback" area with some ideas about fual and ammo and ack and basically my feeling is that we need to make the strat model more progressive and more tightly integrated into how you fly.
An example :-
I have on many occasions wanted to restrict the ability of the enemy to take off from an adjacent field in order to help the attack on the main target of the defense of one of our fields but we only have one option to do this - bomb the fighter hangars. This only lasts 15 mins - by the time you return to base the hangar is up again and the nett effect is very small. If you bomb the fuel dumps the lowest it goes down to is 25% and that is still enough to allow fighter to take off. Bombing the ammo only removes the bombing capability and even with all the ammo bombed the ack still has unlimited ammo.

Admittedly you can extend these times if you bomb the enemy city and factories but if you are under haevy attack and beaten back and low on pilots online it is virtually impossible to get a raid there - you really want to be able to affect the picture on a more micro level - ie. the feild within the surrounding sectors.

As I said I posted what I hope are some constructive ideas in the Gameplay area - maybe you can comment on those HT ??

[This message has been edited by Sparks (edited 08-06-2000).]

[funked]

Great point HT.  99% of players are basically just screwing around.  The only country I have seen use the mission planner effectively is the Knights.  

On the other countries, some Li'l Napoleon starts spewing orders about how we need this or that at a certain field.  If you ask him to put it in the planner, the invariable reply is "it doesn't work" or "I don't know how".  We either need more documentation of this feature, or we need a training program for the bossy guys.  

[hitech]

The system as it stands is ment to make field capture a coradinated effort.

The defender of a field is already at a disadvantag do to the normaly higher e state of the attacker.

Givein the attacker more of an advantage by way of decresing fuel ala AW is a bad idea in my opinion.

Lowering ammo loads would not have much effect on field defense because you very rairly live long enof when defending to expend all your ammo.

At one time we did have hardness of hangers lower and down times longer. It realy made things a pain because a few bufs could effectly close mutiple fields in a short period of time.

The one thing I have been meeing to do is increase the down times of city buildings. This would give a group of buff's time to hit both city's and factorys hence drasticly increasing down times of items at the fields.

And btw there are other option to prevent the attacker from taking your field. Just take out there baracks in naboring fields, hence no troops to capture the fields with.

Care must always be taken in any strat system that you can't put the power in 1 persons hands to make life miserible for an entire group of people.

As to limiting the ammo from a field by supply and usage this also has problems do to 1 person continualy taking of and dieing do to his inexperance it can remove the fun of other players.

The one idea we have considered would work nicly into our carrer points idea.

Who ever wins the war get bonus points to be used for flying the advanced aircraft. Some things would have to be implimented for safe gards such as no changing countries when one side is down to only a few fields.


HiTech

[texace]

We could have something along the lines of real life. A while ago, out here when Convair was at the Carswell facility, there used to be a couple of sets of train tracks use to get supplies for building aircraft. I was thinking that we have factories that build a country's aircraft. As long as the supply routes of train, truck, and if willing, air remain intact, then that country has a normal plane set.

If you destroy only part of a supply line, like a train, then a country's planeset wouldn't be as strong as normal. i.e., maybe a train someone killed was carrying Hispanos, and until another train, plane or truck got from the Hispano factory to the supply depot, no plane could use Hispanos. The more of a supply line you kill, the less that country gets to use. If you kill a supply depot, then it takes a certian amout of time before it's restocked, then that country would only use early model planes with less fuel and ammo. Just my two cents.

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Lt. Col. Aaron "txace-" Giles of the 457th BG
    "Fait Accompli"

[Jochen]

 

Funny how ive heard this cry before and then i look how very few time's people use the strat elements that are already in the game.

Do people even know its posible to knock out fuel ,ack, ordance at fields for 2 hours?

Many pilots know it but why would they use that knowledge? I mean winning the war is pointless, you just lose fields and territory by winning!

We definitely need different rewards for doing things. Maybe announce name of pilot in kill buffer that dropped troops that captured a field?

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jochen
Jagdflieger JG 2 'Richthofen' Aces High
Geschwaderkommodore (on leave) Jagdgeschwader 2 'Richthofen'  Warbirds

T-34/76 to Aces High!

Ladysmith wants you forthwith to come to her relief
Burn your briefs you leave for France tonight
Carefully cut the straps of the booby-traps and set the captives free
But don't shoot 'til you see her big blue eyes

[Sparks]

Originally posted by hitech:
The system as it stands is ment to make field capture a coradinated effort.

Agreed HiTech and I think thats the way it should be as far as possible but I also think there could be a way for lone wolf to help their country mates in a variey of ways

The defender of a field is already at a disadvantag do to the normaly higher e state of the attacker.

Givein the attacker more of an advantage by way of decresing fuel ala AW is a bad idea in my opinion.

Agree on the first part HT but don't we already reduce fuel to 25% when fuel bunkers are hit - why not allow it to go to zero at least ?

Lowering ammo loads would not have much effect on field defense because you very rairly live long enof when defending to expend all your ammo.

Agian agree the point but thats not how I saw an alternative working. I think the amount of ammo you take would not be restricted - only how many aircraft could actually take ammo before it ran out

At one time we did have hardness of hangers lower and down times longer. It realy made things a pain because a few bufs could effectly close mutiple fields in a short period of time.

I think the hangar hardness is about right for gameplay and field capture.

The one thing I have been meeing to do is increase the down times of city buildings. This would give a group of buff's time to hit both city's and factorys hence drasticly increasing down times of items at the fields.

I see the thinking and think it would be a good idea - but will it encourage people to organize the big raids any more than they do now ??

And btw there are other option to prevent the attacker from taking your field. Just take out there baracks in naboring fields, hence no troops to capture the fields with.

I must admit I rarely consider the barracks in defensive attacks but I will now   (Image removed from quote.) [/B]

Care must always be taken in any strat system that you can't put the power in 1 persons hands to make life miserible for an entire group of people.

Absolutely agree but if you go in the MA and are outnumbered heavily it would be nice if gave 1 person the power to make a group of peoples lives a little more difficult.

As to limiting the ammo from a field by supply and usage this also has problems do to 1 person continualy taking of and dieing do to his inexperance it can remove the fun of other players.

That is most certainly a problem which I hadn't considered enough and I've been thinking about that overnight - no ideas yet but working on it.

The one idea we have considered would work nicly into our carrer points idea.

Who ever wins the war get bonus points to be used for flying the advanced aircraft. Some things would have to be implimented for safe gards such as no changing countries when one side is down to only a few fields.

I personally don't like the idea of earning a performance advantage by aircraft type as I think it may produce "super aces" and ace rich countries but until we try we won't know and I have no experience to fall back on so as far as I'm concerned anything to try is good   (Image removed from quote.)

I don't want to appear negative - I just crave for more ways to get into the mechanics of the battle and I think fuel and ammunition availabilty could be much more involved

Respectfully

Sparks



[This message has been edited by Sparks (edited 08-07-2000).]

[Wanker]

How about something along the lines of having a movable "Front" line, just like Falcon 3.0 had?

As your country captures(or loses) fields, the line moves, giving a visual cue as to how the battle is going.

Maybe this would help generate more interest in field capture.

Just throwing out ideas here.....would there be a way to combine cities(or ports) and fields together, so that you could also capture a city(or port) instead of a field? Capturing that city would also capture the field as well.

[Pyro]

There are things like resupply which will make nice feature additions, but they really won't change things much.  Every war's end objective is "capture the flag".  I don't know how you remove that or why it would be desirable to do so.  Being that this is an airplane game, airfields are the natural center of attention.  

The main arena to me is the equivilent of going down the gym for some pickup games of hoops.  It's a lot of fun, popular, works well and gives you a lot of opportunity for lots of practice and exercise.  However, it's not like a regulation game of basketball and is missing many elements.  It's only 3v3, there's no clock, no free throws, no foul limits, possession is make-it-take-it, it's only half court, there's no coach, no refs, no scorekeepers, etc.  Much of the strategy of basketball is missing.  There's no managing of player minutes and fouls, clock management, strategic time-outs and substitutions, etc.  But that's not a bad thing, it makes it a workable format.

Now maybe some of the better players might prefer if the gym were utilized in a more structured manner with full court regulation games taking the place of the pickup games, but would that be better?  

This goes full circle to how people view the role of the MA and other arenas.  For them, it's time for more.  They've fought in every matchup and situation so many times that they could write a Kama Sutra of ACM.  But where were they when they started?  Why was it fun then?  Why is a new player now different?  It's hard enough converting potential players to players.  The player vs. player aspect of the game makes it very difficult by nature and requires a lot of time and practice to make it.  Those who've done it for awhile tend to forget the value of the MA format in cutting your teeth on this.  But the fact is, it's going to require new growth to successfully implement other formats, and to do the latter at the cost of the former is a losing proposition.



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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

[llbm_MOL]

So what your saying Pyro is we need a HA?
Something the players can try to mold and format to our needs?

LLB OUT!!!!!!!!!!