Multiplayer: Room for improvement

[Yours_truly_Ace]

My main problem now with BOS in general is that it feels like just a frag-fest and not much emphasis on teamwork. Even on the full realism servers.

Every time I log on I see vulchures over one of the frontline airfields and that is usually where the action is.

 

I think the main problem lays that in fact there is a scoreboard, and when you have shot down a plane it looks good. And if you are chasing an enemy plane and you have a "wingman" close to you, forget that he will protect you! He rather steal your kill and rather risk might hitting you in the process. 

This same problem excist with most online FPS games. Luckily I have played two games who forces people to work together: Red Orchestra and BF2: Project Reality. Why? Well in RO you are rewarded highly for doing objectives and not kills. In RO a guy can have 100 score, but haven't even killed one enemy. While another might have 20 score, and have shot down 20 soldiers. Also if you walk alone there, you most likely end up dead very fast.

Project Reality on the other hand forces you to join a squadron or you will be kicked off the server. In the squadron you have to listen to your squad leader. Fail to do so and he will kick you from his squad. The game is very good since it has in-game radio channels so basically everyone who plays it have a microphone. 

 

My other gripe with BOS now is the map; Even on realistic servers you can see enemy planes when they are inside one of your airfields "radars". You see an icon of the enemy planes. 

This attracts people to loiter around their own airfields to wait for "vulchers". And the unpatient players always fly close to an airfield to pick a fight. 

It's rarely I see anyone bother doing the objective on the map. But I understand it: The fighter pilots get no reward for escorting bombers or protecting a spot. They only score if they kill something.

One good example of this was me and a bomber flying together (I was 109 flying above him protecting him). We could see on the map where all the action was: Ofcourse over an airfield close to the front...lots of blue and red planes there...so we just flew out of reach so no-one could see us and bombed the objective. Was not very exciting since we basically knew nobody would even be close to us since they all were busy vulching and dogfighting.

I think this problem can be solved if you remove all icons from the map completey (compact instrument panel, activated by the "i" key). This way you never know where the enemy planes are and if you read your objective, you will most likely find enemy planes in this area. This makes it more exciting since you never know where the enemy planes are, making you look more at the environment, instead of checking the map every 20 second for vulchures around your airfields.

If an airfield gets attacked, you should get a radio message of this instead I think. All this will make you a better navigator and map reader since you will have to look at your surroundings to know where you are = better pilot. 

 

Another idea to make people work together is to be able to join in game squadrons. Let say if there is a bomber and two fighters in a squadron, and the bomber manage to destroy it's target and reach back to base safely. Then the fighters get a high score if the bomber manage to land back at the homeplate after a succesfully bomb run. Or if one of the fighters manage to shoot another plane, and after the mission manages to land safely at the homeplate, his wingman get a shared score aswell. 

 

This will make the pilots want to do good, and be more careful. Cause if you don't reach home safely to your airfield, no score.

 

So to sum it up: Remove plane radar detection on map, able to join / create squadrons / reward high for objectives and low for kills, and devide the score on all the squadron members.

 

Well these are just some ideas I have and I think can improve the game. If it's possible ofcourse

 

What do you think? Any other ideas or something you don't like about mine? Feel free to discuss

[Lusekofte]

It is early days of BOS , the squads with TS go high and attack climbing aircraft in teamwork, decimating people that are alone and without comms. Fun for some and frustrating for others.

No matter how you see it, a player need to plan their start, route and try to get a escort / wingman to avoid slaughter. It is part of the good things with this game, excellent rendering of objects. It make it easy to see other planes from above, in COD you need to downgrade your pixels to spot enemy and being high is hard to spot others.

Online is frustrating alone in the long run, fun if you fly with others. I hope for many to enjoy teamwork here, that comms are used. 

Fighters need to protect the airfields and not go lone wolfing . Team up.

Russian side need to be more organized , need to force Luftwaffe to do the fights in medium to low altitudes. Never climb up toward enemy planes. If you are not above the enemy try to escape. No good pilot did ever engage if the circumstances was disadvantage

[Yours_truly_Ace]

It is early days of BOS , the squads with TS go high and attack climbing aircraft in teamwork, decimating people that are alone and without comms. Fun for some and frustrating for others.

No matter how you see it, a player need to plan their start, route and try to get a escort / wingman to avoid slaughter. It is part of the good things with this game, excellent rendering of objects. It make it easy to see other planes from above, in COD you need to downgrade your pixels to spot enemy and being high is hard to spot others.

Online is frustrating alone in the long run, fun if you fly with others. I hope for many to enjoy teamwork here, that comms are used. 

Fighters need to protect the airfields and not go lone wolfing . Team up.

Russian side need to be more organized , need to force Luftwaffe to do the fights in medium to low altitudes. Never climb up toward enemy planes. If you are not above the enemy try to escape. No good pilot did ever engage if the circumstances was disadvantage

 

You are wrong about the climb up toward an enemy plane. That is excactly what you should do. If he is over you and you try to escape he will just catch up to you and shoot you in the ass (if he choose to pursue you that is).

There are many ways of turning a disadvantage sitution into an atvantage situation. I suggest you read more about air combat tactics.

[4Shades]

Sounds just like the IL-2 discussions from 12 years ago. People complaining that dogfight servers are cheezy!!!

[Dakpilot]

You are wrong about the climb up toward an enemy plane. That is excactly what you should do. If he is over you and you try to escape he will just catch up to you and shoot you in the ass (if he choose to pursue you that is).

There are many ways of turning a disadvantage sitution into an atvantage situation. I suggest you read more about air combat tactics.

 

I think the point he was making is is that overall the VVS does/should not want to be flying at high altitudes where the Luftwaffe have anadvantage, and as was historical drag them down to lower levels where they fought on Eastern front with more parity

This can be only achieved if there are objctive based servers where sitting up high waiting for prey will lose you the "map"

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Afwastus]

I have to disagree at least on some level with the "don't fly high as Russian".

 

Provided you actually take the time to get to a decent altitude and have a buddy with you, you can arrive into combat zones with almost all the Germans below you. You also need a plan for if or rather when you encounter a very high German fighter, which again is simply to try and get them lower and potentially to start an egress towards friendly territory.

 

Of course the 109 rules up high, but I've seen some very nice Yak pilots take the battle successfully to the LW up high.

 

I guess what I am saying is even if your plane isn't the best high altitude fighter, you can compensate by getting decent altitude before coming into the battle. After all, even on the German side you don't constantly see people at 7km or at least not for very long.

 

Also, pub servers are mostly people on comms killing people who aren't on comms, that's the nature of games like this where teamwork can immensly increase your success rate.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Afwastus

[Possit]

I played all of the popular flight sims over the years and the multiplayer set ups of all of them never were as successful in attracting players as the original IL-2 as operated through HyperLobby. 

 

Combat flight sims featuring just dogfight servers don't seem to last because these types servers become boring rather quickly.  What is needed is missions that players can join easily that have a beginning, an objective, and an end.  These missions need to be built through a mission builder that is easy to work with and should not last move than 15 minutes.

 

I know this because I made hundreds of them for use on HyperLobby through the original IL-2s easy to learn mission builder.  I also made about forty missions for RoF through its not so easy to master mission builder.   (RoF's multiplayer never got going with privately made missions because its multiplayer wasn't constructed in a fashion conducive to induce players to join them like HyperLobby was.)

 

For this game to attract lots of multiplayers, it will need an easy to master mission builder and something like HyperLobby to allow them to join the missions.  Without these aids, this game will lose its already small following in the long run.