Team Balancing Discussion

[Feathered_IV]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

Lmao what a load of rubbish it's bad enough in a fps when one side has more players add in historical accurate fm and then a 5 v 1 it makes a highly boring silly game.

Are you serious? A game environment where players are forced into a narrow path through an ever more convoluted system of handicaps, all to obtain some misplaced notion of parity is my definition of a silly, boring game. No wonder I find the online environment to be akin to an aerial version of de_Dust.

On the rare times that I do play online, I enjoy being on the outnumbered team. The higher the odds the better. It is exciting to take off, knowing that the odds are against you. You need to fly smart and skirt around the edges, hit and run and do your best to fulfill your mission goals and return alive.

It is more enjoyable than just plowing on into the fray every single time, then showing up here to complain that all variables haven't been removed from the equation for you.

[JG52Krupi]

You can easily run into three or more even with even teams, what your talking about has nothing to do with balance.

Judging by what you say I don't think you play online much

[ATAG_MajorBorris]

[

Originally Posted by klem

I always fly Red. We're often outnumbered but I consider that to be just a 'bad day' and also 'target rich'. I've never seen an outrageous imbalance but I'm usually on when there are 50+ on the server and it seems to settle into a moderate imbalance, say 30:20 worst case, which is ok. Not to mention historical if more blues would fly bombers.

We sometimes takeoff from Eastchurch, especially if Manston and/or Hawkinge are being vulched. The vulchers are too lazy to fly that far and work out which fields are being actively used and it doesn't take us long to get to the coastal fields from there by which time we are formed up at combat altitude and usually at an advantage over the vulchers.

I'm afraid that if you want to jump up at Hawkinge/Manston for a quick fight you are exposing yourself if vulchers are active. Also if you fight alone you are asking for trouble. You don't need to be in a squad, just get on TS and talk to the other guys, throw a 'unit' together and think before you launch.

I do think the SpitIIa's should be moved to an inland field to avoid making Manston an obvious target and reduce to some extent the impact of the IIa which the blues don't like. If you want to fly the "Uber Spit" you should have to work for it. Also, all inland fields should have either the Spit1s or Hurricanes available (maybe they do?) to encourage people away from their death-wish takeoffs on the coast.

Any other ideas requiring tactics over quick kills will prevent the server becoming a "dogfight server".

I had a complete reply ready in my mind after reading several posts and then Klem summed up all of my thoughts and wrote them down (thanks Klem).

I think that if red follows Klems advise there really isn’t much of an issue even when outnumbered.

The real issue is balanced numbers of blue bombers compared to blue fighters. I think that blue can outnumber red 2/1 all the time with half bombers half fighters and red could still do well with motivated tactics/teamwork/coms.

Getting the bombers to affect the objectives is something that will come with time but it wouldn’t hurt if the developers make it a little easier for the mission builders to create.

Big on my wish list also is for a bomber to bomb buildings and score/affect objectives, we need a big carrot for more people to fly bombers and what better then a industrial complex or train station that gets a score on the netstats and affects a airfields ordinance/ammo/fuel for instance or airfield hangers that when destroyed block the spawn or quality if plane type maybe. The possibilities are endless and the strategy limitless all we need is a push from the developers to help us make this the Battle of Britain and not the dogfight of Britain.

Even all that wont help players want to bomb more if they don’t have escort, I find that even as the lone blue bomber much of the time, getting escort is a hit or miss situation and escorts will happily leave to shoot at bomber formations passing by.

Of course the game freezes and crashes when flying formation with virtualy any twin engine aircraft will need to be fixed before any of this matters and last but not least working horizontal stablizer/gyro compass/auto pilot/gunner posistions for all the bombers in game

Klem's observations of the airfield balance are good as well and I am sure Bliss will enjoy the read.


Thanks Klem

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[JG52Krupi]

I agree with klem except for the death wish take off, normally you can get off the ground at hawkinge and normally you can find a 109 that has lost all his e and can be tempted into a dogfight. Only with a out of balance number does this become a problem.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Keller

The Spit IIa has left a bad taste in the mouth of many BLUE pilots and that has caused them to jump to the top of the most wanted list.

Just to clarify once again: There are 5 available. Five. Cinq. Funf. All based at Manston.

That's erm..five. At Manston.

Out of a possible 60 a/c on the server. And if numbers on each side are even, against a possible 30 109's. If not, 55 109's against 5 Spit II's.

When server numbers are low, five is a big number. When it's full it's not.

But please let's not have yet another Spit II debate.

Personally I don't wish to see any server governed numerical evening of the team numbers, or even any insistance by server admins that you join the lower numbered side. By and large, the numerical bias is generally speaking more blue than red, which as Klem says, is a target rich environment for the reds. For the history buffs, it's also more true to life.

I say we leave it as it is, then we get some good days, some bad days on both sides. I always fly red, just as some players only fly blue. I've no idea of how to fly any of the blue 'planes, so if there was any numerically based insistance that I did, I'd exit the server and go bomb targets on server 2. Or play RoF.

We don't want people to exit the server, we want them to stay and have a good time. Without any stifling 'rules'.

[JG52Krupi]

No one here is complaining about the spit 2 yet, makes a nice change though 5 is the perfect number.

Btw one of the reds highest scorer is a guy that only flies spit mk 1a

[JG52Krupi]

During the battle of Britain the downed German pilots statements of being shot down by spits led to the term "spitfire snobbery" in ATAG we have "spit 2a snobbery"

[ATAG_Dutch]

I know.

They only ever get shot down by the IIa those blue guys.

I never even bother trying to get a IIa anymore. Leave them for the good guys like Sniper.

[csThor]

Seriously, Krupi ... If you want fairness and equality go play a sports game. I totally agree with Feathered_IV - adpot any kind of "equality rules" or any other gamey crutch to create a perceived equality you take away what interests me in historical flightsims in the first place - the historical setting. Actually that one is among the top 5 reasons why I greatly prefer offline.

Why don't the airfields have enough AAA to crush single vulchers?