PERK the BIG FOUR this tour!!!

[Red Tail 444]

All these people complaininga about not perking the big4? Well..if the big-4 pilots are such hot shots, whats the fear in flying a perked ride, unless, yo dont care about landing If you can fly, and rtb safely, whats the big deal inflying a perkie? perk em all, I say!

No complaints here with my hog-4 flying arse....come up and dance if ya wanna Put the F4U-1 at 30 perks, the Hog-4 at 100, I'll STILL whup every one of ya

Sorry, I'm mad because Im grounded...

Gainsie

[bockko]

lets just get rid of choice altoghter since no one agrees with anyone elses choice. You have to fly all planes, in order on the hangar selection screen. You keep your ride until it dies. Done, no reason to complain about what other people fly, except perhaps the guy who crashes 8 out of 10 rides to get a decent plane. Or maybe you get a ride for a whole day, it is the only one you can up until the next day.

[Rutilant]

"Perk is just a different aspect of RPS in a way. It's a restriction on what is available to fly. The community has been pretty adamantly against that. As they are in the various "perk this, perk that" threads."



The community is? Than, gasp, what's this? an almost unanimous agreement and support of Kweassa's perk agenda? I can't believe it, it surely supports how against everyone is of perking anything.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87356

[Halo]

Right on, Suave -- perk four, then the next four dominate; perk them, then four different ones ... and so on until there are less than four planes left.

Foo on perks.  The Combat Theater is the most fun on the rare occasions when like the good olde days of Air Warrior you get to fly anything with no perks.

[Murdr]

What an old, old argument None of them will ever be perked anyways, but IMHO:

Who cares if everyone wants to fly only a certain few planes out of the set?  Not me.  I only care if any of those certian planes are so far out of balance (heavy on advantages, and light on weaknesses) with the rest of the set that they negate the whole idea of simulating air combat.

Spit9- Good balanced plane, no reason to ever perk.
P51D- Good balanced plane, no reason to ever perk.
N1k-Shouldnt be able to hang on its prop without tourque effects, but its never gonna change, no reason to perk.
La7- Outragous acceleration, can reverse to face a plane, reverse again after the merge, and still run down 90% of the planes in the set in a matter of seconds.  No reason to ever be a non-perk.

[Urchin]

I hate to break it to you, but the La-7, P-51, Spitfire IX, and N1K2 will never be perked.  They've been running about 40% of the kills and 60-70% of the usage for the past year now at least.  

One thing you need to get through your heads.  HTC doesn't give a **** about air combat.  They don't care about 'dweeb planes'.  They care about money, and that is all they care about.  And there have been more people in the MA in the past year then ever before, and do you think they are happy or unhappy about this?

Yes, the Spit IX and N1K2 are 'easymode'.  Well, I don't know if you could stretch it that far, but you could make an argument for it.  They are the fastest "good turners", so of course they are going to be popular.  Look at it like this.  By themselves, the Spit IX and N1K2 render about 75% of the planeset useless.  Again... if you think HTC cares about that you are deluded.  HTC would rather have 5,000 people flying Spits and N1K2s than 4 people flying P40E's or 109F's.  And, if choosing between a plane that is faster, turns better, has better firepower, and accelerates better and some other plane.... why on earth would you choose the other plane?  You can't expect people to voluntary put themselves at a disadvantage vis a vis anyone else in a game, thats plain ****ing retarded.

Personally, I don't feel that the P-51 needs to be perked.  Yes, it is fast, yes it has good firepower, and yes it climbs well.  OK, so it is the boom and zoomer of choice.  So?  It has weaknesses.  The biggest one is it accelerates poorly, so if a P-51 pilots finds himself slow and in a crowd of enemies he is in trouble.   Second, it is balanced vis a vis the other fast planes- namely the Typhoon, 109G10, and 190D9.  

The La7?  Well, that renders the rest of the planeset useless.  The P-51 outperforms one up high, and the guns are easy to hit with, so the P-51 is still a viable alternative.  The La-7 is the suckass pilot's plane of choice.  And typically, it shows in the way they fly it.  I haven't run into an La-7 pilot yet than I can't kill in a fight about 9 times out of 10, if they fight.  Of course, since they KNOW they are suckass pilots, they don't fight.  They Bore and Zoom, "fighting" only until they don't have a huge and very clear advantage in numbers and altitude.  I think the La-7, more than any other single factor, has changed our main arena into a sissy arena.  The LW planes have always had to fight like sissies, since they suck, but there was a stigma attached to them.  There is no such stigma attached to the La-7, in fact most of the sissy's flying it are idolized by other people for being such 'smart' pilots.  

So, lets say the few hundred 'vets' that aren't happy with the way the game is all decide to quit.  Ok, lets make it a round 300.  So 300x15 is 4,500.  Ok, HTC just lost 4,500 a month.  Now lets say HTC gets tired of hearing about how ****ing boring his game is now and decides to change it.  Ok, La7/runstang/Spit IX/N1K get perked and the emphasis gets shifted from milkrun/landgrab/gangbang back to air to air combat.  Well, unfortunately the 4,000 people that think it is fun the way it is quit.  So... 4,000 x 15 is....  60,000.  Which do you think will put a bigger dent in aircraft maintence charges?  

So yes, the game has changed a lot from when it was fun.  And yes, there are many many times more suckass timid pilots than there were.  And if they pay their 15 bucks a month... well, HT has a plane now, so do you think he is happy with the way his game turned out?  I do.

[hazed-]

HTC doesnt care about those asking for a less boring arena?

They are making AH2 arena as their latest project. I think they do care.

Urchin your 4000 people who you seem to think would leave. this figure your favourite number? cant think where esle you got it from because theres no way of knowing  who would leave or stay. You have ignored the fact that a lot of people in AH come and go all the time while others stay long term.I think HTC must have a list of long term customers as this is the group whos income he can RELY on. theres probably high numbers of players trying the game for a while and moving on and  HTC has to add features and updates to attract new players and maintain interest for longterm players.

HTC I doubt ignore any group of players. Why else would they give us 4 or 5 different arenas?

Im sorry but what you just said was nonsense. Perhaps you might have a point about the p51 or spit as they are so famous but the nik ,La7 ?? people dont come to AH to fly them! most like me when i started have never heard of them.
As for perking the p51D and spit9, well if they were the only models of their type then id agree people would be annoyed if they couldnt fly them but as BOTH have other models which arent perked like the p51b or spit5 I doubt anyone would be that bothered.
Another thing is you seem to think that 4000 people you quote wouldnt be able to grab the next best 4 and continue to have fun.
Mountains out of mole hills urchin. Just like when HTC perked the f4uc.People screamed that the american market would be pissed off and will complain they cant fly the F4uc when they want.AH is ruined they cried!

well it wasnt was it. There really wasnt many that couldnt earn the few perks it needed to fly it.People realised they COULD fly it almost whenever they wanted but as it could be a little costly they decided to fly something else MOST of the time and save the f4uc for special occations that it truelly suited. The exact same thing would happen to the top 4 we mention.

They will still be there
they will be easy to afford

there will just be a few less of them around whilst other aircraft take over the popular spot for a while.

'oh this is terrible! nothing will have changed they will call for the next 4 to be perked! blah blah blah' Im sure we'll see this kind of poop too

Well when the next 4 aircraft become all too common the old top 4 can be unperked and the new takes their place.
RESULT
constantly shifting choices of engagements.one month its 205s the next its la7s. I think id would be great for the game.

leave things as they are now?
RESULT

quite a few of HTC's longterm reliable custom base will either quit or move on through boredom because of a constantly repetative gameplay.(ie same 4 planes fighting all the time).

I might be wrong here but thats the way I think it would go and im not alone in thinking it.This recent call for perking of the 4 is more a call for some kind of temporary change to tide us over until AH2 than some kind of conspiricy to remove someones favourite plane. No one asked for them to be takken out.

[Urchin]

Actually I picked 4,000 because I took my lowest rank, which was 3526 in vehicles, and figured that if I've never been in one, there are 3525 people with a higher rank than me.  There are also probably some people who have ALSO not been in a GV this tour, and would be tied with me at 3526.  I don't think it'd be that great a stretch to say there are 4000 people playing this game- compared to 'mainstream' MMOG's this is small fry.

Actually... let me play devils advocate here.  Alright, lets say we want the two best turners perked, and the two best 'runners' as it were.  Then the top 4 aircraft get perked every month and the old top 4 get unperked, right?  Month 1 :  Spit IX, N1K2, La-7, P-51D are top.  Month 2:  Spit V, Typhoon, probably the Hurricane 2C, and possibly the 190d9 are top.  I doubt the 190, I think everyone would be in the Typhoon.  Month 3: See month 1, Month 4: see month 2.  Yea, what a shocking difference.

[Terror]

Yes, people would fly the "next four", but the current "BIG Four" would not drop off the list.  They would still be right up at the top, even possibly stil stay as the top four....

Terror

[Kweassa]

I don't think there's reason to be that pessimistic all over what HTC thinks(tho' I do admit it's frustrating some times..).. maybe they'd rethink how perks are applied if there was an alternative that was reasonable enough.

 How'z bout the perk list I thought of, Urch? Have you ever read it?

 The link is in the sig...

[Karnak]

Urchin,

Normally you present reasonable arguments, but sometimes you veer off into some other place.

This time that other place was hyperbole.


I do agree that those four aircraft are over used and that, the La-7 in particular, they are too good in relation to the other aircraft.

However:

The Spitfire Mk IX and N1K2 do not make 75% of the planeset obsolete.  They do make some aircraft obsolete, such as your P-40E and Bf109F-4 examples, but unless we use a 1941 planeset without including the Spitfire Mk Vb both those aircraft would still be obsolete due to things like the F6F-5 and C.205.

The only aircraft that the Spitfire MK IX and N1K2-J really render obsolete are the aircraft that are the runners up for the fast turn & burn fighters.  Remove the Spitfire Mk IX and N1K2 and those runner ups now occupy the top spot and render their runner ups obsolete.

It is simply a matter of picking which aircraft you want at the top of the fast turn & burn list.  If HTC wanted the Bf109F-4 and P-40E at the top of the list they would have tp perk an awful lot of other aircraft.

(I also noted that the N1K2 seems to be falling from favor with the dweebs, and that last Tour the La-7 surpassed the P-51D and almost equaled the Spitfire Mk IX).


Furthermore I have seen no evidence that HTC doesn't care.  They are busy working on a major upgrade and staleness is to be expected given the length of the dev cycle required for such an upgrade.  I have met the HTC staff and none of them meet your description.  They are in this business because they like WWII air combat and your portrayal of them as mere corporate flacks is simply wrong.

[Murdr]

Just a comment on the 4000 people.  Industry numbers suggest that at any given time an average of only 5% of game subscribers are online.  Up to 10% during peak usage hours.  I checked it out when EA would let you download the entire score list, it was pretty accurate.  Following those percentages 4k is only about 65% of the total

[BNM]

Only read the 1st few posts of this thread but I'd be willing to try about anything for 1 tour if i'd bring more variety to the MA. My $0.02

[Urchin]

Yea Karnak, I guess I did take a trip to the land of hyperbolia there, huh?  So perhaps some of it was exagerated, slightly.  

Actually, I'll give you a list of the planes that I think the Spit IX and N1K2 make pretty much useless.  I might miss some planes, but I'll try not to.  

P-47 (all of them), P-38, F6F, P-40 (both), F4F (both), Hurricane (all), Mosquito (?), 109 (except G-10), 190 (except D9), 110 (both), C202/205, and Ki-61.  

That's all I could pick out in my brief run-through.  Also keep in mind that my list is purely A2A combat, I know the Spitfire doesn't carry any sort of heavy A2G load.  Now, when I say that these planes become "useless"  I don't mean that a Spit IX will utterly dominate these planes in a fight (although it will, assuming the pilot skill is even), I mean that if someone takes the time to compare the planes, he would almost invariably go with the Spitfire (or N1K2, as the case may be, below 10k the planes have almost identical performance).  The Hurricane is 'useless' for a different reason-  The Hurricane out-turns almost every plane, but then so does the Spit IX and it has much better performance in other areas so there is no point in flying a Hurricane.  The rest of them are lacking in speed (the slight top speed advantage doesn't justify the huge losses in the following), acceleration, turning, firepower for most of the planes.  

Just to keep it brief, since I have to go to work, the La-7 does the same thing for the 'fast' planes.  The Typhoon, P-51D, 109G-10, and 190d-9 are relatively well balanced vis a vis the others.  They each have strengths and weaknesses the other planes can exploit.  The La-7 has strengths, but no weaknesses to go along with them.  So why on earth, if you are a discriminating consumer (read, wannabe fighter pilot) would you fly an inferior plane and voluntarily put yourself at a disadvantage?  The answer is, of course, you wouldn't.  

And again I'll submit that this is a business, folks.  If what HTC is doing has brought more people into the game than ever before... it isn't going to change.  That is just the way life is.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Urchin

Just to keep it brief, since I have to go to work, the La-7 does the same thing for the 'fast' planes.  The Typhoon, P-51D, 109G-10, and 190d-9 are relatively well balanced vis a vis the others.  They each have strengths and weaknesses the other planes can exploit.  The La-7 has strengths, but no weaknesses to go along with them.  

Its "weakness" is comparative performance with altitude........ and in some cases control responce at very high speeds.

My view is that its other weakness's should be armament......... and stability.

In gun range it is disadvantaged but I would go further to perk the 3 gun version over the 2 gun version.


If we ever get to perking different load outs (heavy bombs etc) then I would advocate to perk the La 7's third cannon. (out of over 5000 la7's produced before May 45 less than 400 three cannon versions reached the front).

It is not the stable gun platform presented by any of the other 4 mentioned......... however given some revision and considering a short air frame with massive elevator and rudder surfaces it should be more of a challenge to those wanting  fine control.

Added to this if HTC ever model (more fervently) its landing and taxi'ing characturistics it may well become the least popular AC in the arena.