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View Full Version : Operation Daisy - Boring, boring, boring!



Catseye
Nov-28-2012, 20:35
Hi All,
Well, I've flown this map several times and all I can say is: That it is below the usual standards of ATAG maps.

There is not a locus of events to draw aircraft together - as in a flight of bombers inbound (that I have seen).

It is a big map and does little to bring the participants together.

There is no option for Red to load up a bomber and go and target the other side.

BF-110's are launching too close to the front and are sitting ducks.

The premise is fictitious but has little thought behind placement of airfields.

Playability: One can fly for hours and not see a soul. (yes, I know where they are if needed but it leans to promoting a Dogfight server than a strategy server). If I want to dogfight, I go to Repka.

I, like many others have only so much time to afford to flying and it is disappointing to enter the server and for me, to find this map loaded. I have to go somewhere else.

So, my opinion is that this mission is using up valuable band-width and that ATAG would be better served in replacing it with a more inclusive map.

OK,
Venting off.

Dutch
Nov-28-2012, 21:15
Catseye, that doesn't sound like you mate! :D

Just kill the Hun. Anywhere, everywhere. :thumbsup:

ATAG_Bliss
Nov-29-2012, 01:15
Hi All,
Well, I've flown this map several times and all I can say is: That it is below the usual standards of ATAG maps.

There is not a locus of events to draw aircraft together - as in a flight of bombers inbound (that I have seen).

It is a big map and does little to bring the participants together.

There is no option for Red to load up a bomber and go and target the other side.

BF-110's are launching too close to the front and are sitting ducks.

The premise is fictitious but has little thought behind placement of airfields.

Playability: One can fly for hours and not see a soul. (yes, I know where they are if needed but it leans to promoting a Dogfight server than a strategy server). If I want to dogfight, I go to Repka.

I, like many others have only so much time to afford to flying and it is disappointing to enter the server and for me, to find this map loaded. I have to go somewhere else.

So, my opinion is that this mission is using up valuable band-width and that ATAG would be better served in replacing it with a more inclusive map.

OK,
Venting off.

Hey Catseye,

The premise of this mission was based on a little event the Russian community had in mind. The idea was they wanted to be able to fly to London in Italian birds. I placed all the German Heavies (any bomb carrying German bird) near the front lines as to let people that only knew how to fly those types still be able to use their planes with a huge chance of them not making it off the ground. It was designed so the reds kept the German heavies from taking off. But if you took off from the Italian fields chances were slim you'd ever run into an enemy contact until well over the British lines. With that said, I agree with you that I imagine it has gotten old and has more than likely turned into a dogfight map.

I have around 10 new missions that are all at the 75% completion stage (fixing the damn game bugs) to make them work. I just have not had the time for the hours upon hours of making them work as intended yet. I haven't even been able to fly in well over a month, my pc has hardly been on etc., in that time. It's just the way it is right now. So in saying that, I can only apologize if you don't like it. Heck, I probably wouldn't either. It was hastily made and has 0 AI flights. I will be trying to release some new missions in a few weeks, but I can't make any promises right now. I simply have too much going on in RL atm. I know Colander is still working on some magic, so things will improve.

Hope you understand.

Roblex
Nov-29-2012, 02:08
While this is my least favourite map I am not sure I agree with the criticism. I feel it is more to do with the players.
If the reds stopped playing it like a dogfight server by taking off from Eastchurch and either waiting for the blues to come for a furball or going to Manston to provoke a furball then the gameplay would be vastly improved. Instead we get a furball between the two closest fields and the mission targets sitting undefended and the map drags on for 6 hours. I often go to Heathrow to patrol Langely or to Kenley to cover Croydon & Parliament just in case a lone 110 decides to take advantage of their undefended status but it can get very boring if everyone is more content furballing at Eastchurch

The targets are all in a relatively contained space, you can sit between Croydon & Parliament and see both targets and the third target, the hurricane factory, is only 2-3 minutes west of Parliament yet there are many players on both sides that have played this map dozens of times and have no idea where the targets are. Yes the blues also join in the Eastchurch-Manston furball game but if the Reds were to take off from Biggin, Kenley, Heathrow, Hendon etc. and defend the targets then the Blues, even the ones only looking for a dogfight, would stop hanging round Eastchurch and come to London and while they are at it have a go at the targets as well.

Design-wise I don't think having a map that can only be finished by one side and merely 'survived' by the other works. The reds need a way of pushing the blues back into the Channel. The reds should be able to sink the fleet and destroy the supply dumps and close the map themselves if they don't want it to drag on for 6 hours; I have had to deliberately destroy my own sides targets before just to move the map on!

III./ZG76_Saipan
Nov-29-2012, 14:45
i find red rarely protects london, they seem to like vulching instead. perhaps u red might enjoy CAP duty.

ATAG_Colander
Nov-29-2012, 14:49
Maybe something as simple as adding bombers spawn bases in france would make a difference.

III./ZG76_Chasing Fear
Nov-29-2012, 18:14
i find red rarely protects london, they seem to like vulching instead. perhaps u red might enjoy CAP duty.

This!!

Last night Keller and I rolled into London without opposition, although Doc had our backs in case there was any. The targets had been lightly hit, but in 5 minutes we were able to destroy all three targets in 2 JU-88s. Overall numbers of red vs blue were roughly equal, but several of us were bombers ... red therefore had the advantage in fighters. Our biggest threat was flak, like it often is.

The mission is fine, but that's only part of it. The way people approach the mission is far more important. Trying to achieve mission objectives builds teamwork, which makes the game far more enjoyable. More people should try flying the mission, not just fly around looking for furballs.

-Fear

Doc
Nov-29-2012, 18:55
Well this all harkens to the fact that its a game and no real loss of life happens.
There's really no command structure and consequences for disobeying orders.
It's unlimited virtual life's at the cost of a few dollars now.
Charge per plane and you'd see a big difference.

Catseye
Nov-29-2012, 20:40
Catseye, that doesn't sound like you mate! :D

Just kill the Hun. Anywhere, everywhere. :thumbsup:

You're right Dutch.
Moment of frustration and a weeeeeee bit too much Saki - single malt-like.

What I humbly should have suggested was perhaps the inclusion of landing barges/ships or ships enroute from France that Blenheims could attack and give us some Blenheims from the back bases.

Right now, Red gets to hang around near Ramsgate and await Blue taking off.

It's just that there is so much vacant time to kill in this map that the addition of action to stimulate more flight options or something to bring together the combatants instead of either hanging around the London area wondering if someone like Keller is going to attack the Parliament buildings or should I go and vulch the Ramsgate area.

Interesting to me for stimulation: I've been flying for the "Darkside" taking my Bf-110 to London navigating blind in the weeds and hoping to popup somewhere near Tower Bridge.

Just needs some modification IMHO>

Cheers

Catseye
Nov-30-2012, 12:21
Hey Catseye,

The premise of this mission was based on a little event the Russian community had in mind. The idea was they wanted to be able to fly to London in Italian birds. I placed all the German Heavies (any bomb carrying German bird) near the front lines as to let people that only knew how to fly those types still be able to use their planes with a huge chance of them not making it off the ground. It was designed so the reds kept the German heavies from taking off. But if you took off from the Italian fields chances were slim you'd ever run into an enemy contact until well over the British lines. With that said, I agree with you that I imagine it has gotten old and has more than likely turned into a dogfight map.

I have around 10 new missions that are all at the 75% completion stage (fixing the damn game bugs) to make them work. I just have not had the time for the hours upon hours of making them work as intended yet. I haven't even been able to fly in well over a month, my pc has hardly been on etc., in that time. It's just the way it is right now. So in saying that, I can only apologize if you don't like it. Heck, I probably wouldn't either. It was hastily made and has 0 AI flights. I will be trying to release some new missions in a few weeks, but I can't make any promises right now. I simply have too much going on in RL atm. I know Colander is still working on some magic, so things will improve.

Hope you understand.

Hi Bliss,
Thanks for your reply.
First off I have to apologize for my abruptness and inability to put my thoughts into correct context. I want to thank all those and particularly you in this instance, for taking the time to create these great maps. I meant to, in my clumsy way, be objective and not personal in my initial post.

So, after careful second, third and fourth sober thought I thought I would re-phrase what I so brutishly put forward.

I think that:
. . . The premise is an interesting one and worthy of exploring.

. . . The feature set at this moment requires some tweaking in order to provide more game-play/variety for the participants. ie., there is considerable airspace to accomplish blue objectives and when there are only a few online, it makes it difficult for Red to cover all the area effectively per the objectives. While some Red are "camping out" near Ramsgate to pick off anyone trying to ingress up the Thames Estuary and having some success in hitting Blue as they are climbing out - other Reds are discouraged flying CAP over London and the prime targets as very few Blues are making it through in volume. Trying to find a solo Blue inbound is next to impossible for many reasons.

. . . For Blue, it is difficult to develop any major assault on the prime targets because of RED CAPing and promotes the single aircraft low incursion on the prime targets which Red have difficulty in finding.

. . . Some tweaking I thought of was to give Red some "offensive" targets: for example, some landing craft/ships off Dover Harbor - ships coming from France to re-enforce the landing. This should give Red a reason to ground attack and provide Blue with some requirement to CAP their area also.

. . . . Additionally, provide Red with more reason to CAP London by having flights of inbound AI bombers from French airbases attack in continual streams high. Flak, balloons and such would be a super interesting scenario for Red to get high and try to turn the tide so to speak. This would also give Blue some leverage in getting their Fighter Bombers off the forward bases and attempt their low ingress while all the high stuff is going on.

. . . Perhaps a Blue storage compound or fuel depots near Dover as they try to set up their forward bases?

. . . . A "front" of some kind might be considered with convoys, trains and such somewhere between the coast and London whereby the defenders would be building up an army front with compounds at key points. (fuel depots and such)

I know that it is easy to present ideas from the sidelines as it takes so much time and effort to implement them and words are relatively cheap in comparison. But I do want to say that I'm hoping that some of my thoughts on up-scaling this map might be considered and doable.

I do like the idea of the ATAG second server being in service for BETA evaluations. I'd like to put forward for consideration the procedure of making all new missions available only on the second server and a selected BETA team which might include a complete squadron for specific playability tests be enabled with a specific document created to be filled out whereby the ATAG exec. could make determinations to release a map for Server 1 public consumption.

ATAG has really enabled some great map/mission designers to come forth with absolutely great skillsets that have produced phenomenal and complex maps and scoring and objectives and more. These scenarios I speak of, have raised the bar considerably for ATAG since the initiation of the ATAG public server. The bar at this point now has a double edge whereby expectations have also been raised with just what can be offered. By tweaking this scenario, it could reach that higher plateau.

I hope that I may have tweaked some additional ideas for increasing the playability of this map and for methodologies for evaluating proposed new maps before release.

My best to the ATAG team!

MADDMANN
Nov-30-2012, 14:29
Well this all harkens to the fact that its a game and no real loss of life happens.
There's really no command structure and consequences for disobeying orders.
It's unlimited virtual life's at the cost of a few dollars now.
Charge per plane and you'd see a big difference.


#1 Return the plane get all kills/points you earned in the flight.

No RTB no kills No RTB no score.

*or*

#2 Return the plane get all kills/points earned.

No RTB 1/2 or 1/4 score awarded slight penalty for falure to RTB

can you do something to stop the Air bail out and quick ESC to avoid a death or granting a kill.

can you do anything to make mission goal more viable give more points for it? other than a furball that takes place no where near the goal's of the room. . say if a red obj is taken out award all blue team players a bonus with *pilots who did the damage getting much higher share of score.

can you make RTB the goal after mission based bomb run / bomber protect ect.. if you dont RTB you get NADDA or a score penalty. after all if your dead/bail capture, how do you get any score at all?

In my view this takes cost of life and value of taking out tagets into a higher light as well it may promote playing to the goal of the room.

*edit* plz take into account i do not know the code or how-to or if its even in the realm of possible.*
~S~

ATAG_Bliss
Nov-30-2012, 15:07
Hi Bliss,
Thanks for your reply.
First off I have to apologize for my abruptness and inability to put my thoughts into correct context. I want to thank all those and particularly you in this instance, for taking the time to create these great maps. I meant to, in my clumsy way, be objective and not personal in my initial post.

So, after careful second, third and fourth sober thought I thought I would re-phrase what I so brutishly put forward.

I think that:
. . . The premise is an interesting one and worthy of exploring.

. . . The feature set at this moment requires some tweaking in order to provide more game-play/variety for the participants. ie., there is considerable airspace to accomplish blue objectives and when there are only a few online, it makes it difficult for Red to cover all the area effectively per the objectives. While some Red are "camping out" near Ramsgate to pick off anyone trying to ingress up the Thames Estuary and having some success in hitting Blue as they are climbing out - other Reds are discouraged flying CAP over London and the prime targets as very few Blues are making it through in volume. Trying to find a solo Blue inbound is next to impossible for many reasons.

. . . For Blue, it is difficult to develop any major assault on the prime targets because of RED CAPing and promotes the single aircraft low incursion on the prime targets which Red have difficulty in finding.

. . . Some tweaking I thought of was to give Red some "offensive" targets: for example, some landing craft/ships off Dover Harbor - ships coming from France to re-enforce the landing. This should give Red a reason to ground attack and provide Blue with some requirement to CAP their area also.

. . . . Additionally, provide Red with more reason to CAP London by having flights of inbound AI bombers from French airbases attack in continual streams high. Flak, balloons and such would be a super interesting scenario for Red to get high and try to turn the tide so to speak. This would also give Blue some leverage in getting their Fighter Bombers off the forward bases and attempt their low ingress while all the high stuff is going on.

. . . Perhaps a Blue storage compound or fuel depots near Dover as they try to set up their forward bases?

. . . . A "front" of some kind might be considered with convoys, trains and such somewhere between the coast and London whereby the defenders would be building up an army front with compounds at key points. (fuel depots and such)

I know that it is easy to present ideas from the sidelines as it takes so much time and effort to implement them and words are relatively cheap in comparison. But I do want to say that I'm hoping that some of my thoughts on up-scaling this map might be considered and doable.

I do like the idea of the ATAG second server being in service for BETA evaluations. I'd like to put forward for consideration the procedure of making all new missions available only on the second server and a selected BETA team which might include a complete squadron for specific playability tests be enabled with a specific document created to be filled out whereby the ATAG exec. could make determinations to release a map for Server 1 public consumption.

ATAG has really enabled some great map/mission designers to come forth with absolutely great skillsets that have produced phenomenal and complex maps and scoring and objectives and more. These scenarios I speak of, have raised the bar considerably for ATAG since the initiation of the ATAG public server. The bar at this point now has a double edge whereby expectations have also been raised with just what can be offered. By tweaking this scenario, it could reach that higher plateau.

I hope that I may have tweaked some additional ideas for increasing the playability of this map and for methodologies for evaluating proposed new maps before release.

My best to the ATAG team!

Hi Catseye,

There's no reason to apologize. Your post was written perfectly. You stated the reasons you didn't like the map and gave some feedback on how to improve it, then wrote another post with more ideas. There's a big difference in doing that, than just saying "this sucks, you guys suck etc.etc." That's exactly what we like to see. If people don't let us know, we can never improve. I wish we got more feedback.

I like everyone's ideas. The real problem is just the time to hash it all out and with the code. Some of the additional objective type things would be fairly quick to do, but a completely different scoring system is a whole 'nother ball game. Why they had to go and change how old IL2 did things is beyond me, but I really miss landing kills etc.. There is really no incentive to land back home or even to make it back home other than personal glory right now. I don't know if we can change this, but I'm definitely not the guy to "code" it. If it were up to me it would be exactly like FBDj's way of doing things with scoring. But how much of that information that can be coded into Clod is beyond me.

Salmo
Dec-01-2012, 02:27
<snip>... There is really no incentive to land back home or even to make it back home other than personal glory right now.... <snip>

This is very true, & a real problem when building missions/scoring etc. I'm in favour of scoring points when objects are destroyed just becuase that reflects RL. ie kill the enemy benefits your army. But how to encourage players to RTB, and to value their plane and to value their life? There are many possible approaches, but we need to search for a solution that most players can live with. I'll start another thread on the topic.

Catseye
Dec-01-2012, 12:35
This is very true, & a real problem when building missions/scoring etc. I'm in favour of scoring points when objects are destroyed just becuase that reflects RL. ie kill the enemy benefits your army. But how to encourage players to RTB, and to value their plane and to value their life? There are many possible approaches, but we need to search for a solution that most players can live with. I'll start another thread on the topic.

Is it possible in scripting in your mission to: Tally any points for the team but deny the individual points if exiting early?

Seems that this might be a solution whereby the group receives the rewards (as in RL stats), but the individual does not receive the reward because they exited early? (do not exist any more)