Making MP Better

[SharpeXB]

Despite the growth of this game over the last seven years, (there are 206,000 forum members!) multiplayer had largely remained stagnate. The number of players online rarely raises above the numbers to fill a single 84 player server, the same numbers online as when this game was new with a fraction of the owners it has now. 
For years WoL was the single active server. TAW ran only intermittently. 
The only growth seems created by the addition of BoBp and Combat Box. Basically a Western Hemisphere / Western Front server. So the growth is from new content rather than any real improvement in the base game. 
 

Here’s the problem:

Every server mission anticipates a full attendance and missions designed with targets scattered all over a large map. Honestly they are too scattered. Given the number of players even when full at 84, the targets are so remote and combined with visibility issues, the players will rarely see or engage one another, Indeed you can orbit a target for 40 minutes and you won’t see a single enemy plane come to attack it. So that’s just not good mission design to begin with. But with a partially full server this is even worse. The result is just boredom of searching or waiting around targets with little action. It makes multiplayer sessions needlessly long and it’s harder to encourage people to play online with such a time commitment which can’t be paused or left unattended. 

It just doesn’t make to any good use of your gameplay time especially now with an engaging SP career to compete with. Again the result of this is about zero growth in the number seen online, definitely not an attendance that reflects the growth of the game as a whole. 
 

Solutions:

Better mission design. Group the targets into fewer areas and more central to the airfields or spawn locations. Don’t place them randomly all over the map and way out towards the edges. Create an environment where players will actually see and engage one another. Most of the current missions I see would probably require 200 players to populate them effectively. 
Server admins could look at attendance data and run smaller missions during times where they know attendance will be small. 
 

Game Improvements. 

The game does not scale itself for the number of players. It would be great if the MP mission could scale itself up or down depending on the number of players. Many other games have different map sizes depending on the number of players. The map is intended for say 32 or 64 people, they don’t put 12 players on a map designed for 64. The 84 player limit isn’t realistic most days. 
 

Get rid of Alternate Visibility. This game is too small to have features which divide up an already small base. 
 

Some specific suggestions

Berloga: Do a map rotation! You’ve been running the same map for eons! Have some imagination. Make some different mission layout. 
 

TAW. I may be out of date on this one since this particular issue made me give up on it. Turn down the AAA lethality! This is supposed to be player vs player and not player vs AI

 

Thats all. Thanks

Edited May 2, 2020 by SharpeXB

[6./ZG26_Custard]

Don't mean to be the fly in the ointment but I fly exclusively multiplayer and lumping targets all together is a recipe for disaster. This is particularly so if you are a ground attack or a bomber pilot. Most servers are inadvertently fighter centric anyway. Also regarding player numbers you can have 400 plus flyers on a good night. I understand that is nowhere near the heady days of the golden age of flight sims but being a fairly niche product it's pretty good. 

Edit: I would also add that people don't seem to have any problems finding my 110 or shooting it down for that matter. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by 6./ZG26_Custard

[[DBS]Browning]

Usually three or four full servers these days. Multilayer numbers have gone up consistently in my estimation. 

[SharpeXB]

24 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

Usually three or four full servers these days. Multilayer numbers have gone up consistently in my estimation. 

Well everyone is on lockdown right now so yeah numbers are up. 

[[DBS]Browning]

No, they were up well before Christmas as well. I think BoBP takes the credit.

That said, I agree with you that something to tackle the visibility changes is needed and some experimental mission design would be welcome.

Perhaps this "Air Marshal" thing will be the ticket?

[SharpeXB]

3 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

No, they were up well before Christmas as well. I think BoBP takes the credit.

I agree the growth was due to BoBp and then Combat Box

before that, for years... WoL was the sole populated server. Amazing really. A game with just a single MP server. 

[Beazil]

12 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

No, they were up well before Christmas as well. I think BoBP takes the credit.

That said, I agree with you that something to tackle the visibility changes is needed and some experimental mission design would be welcome.

Perhaps this "Air Marshal" thing will be the ticket?

I think that was the spirit of it.

Edit: I also think my statement is a gross oversimplification of the feature.

Edited May 2, 2020 by JG51_Beazil

[DD_Arthur]

3 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I agree the growth was due to BoBp and then Combat Box

before that, for years... WoL was the sole populated server. Amazing really. A game with just a single MP server. 

 

Guess what Sharpe; there is life outside the United States.  Euro evening times there are regularly over three hundred people online.

[[DBS]Browning]

If you haven't tried it already Sharpe, I strongly recommend flying with a group online.

Not only is it more fun, you also find the action much faster. You are always welcome to join us on Fridays or Sundays from ~7pm BST.

 

Edit:

It's just past peak time right now, but there are still 475 people online in about26 active servers. 6 servers have over 50 players each.

Edited May 2, 2020 by [DBS]Browning

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Don't mean to be the fly in the ointment but I fly exclusively multiplayer and lumping targets all together is a recipe for disaster. This is particularly so if you are a ground attack or a bomber pilot. Most servers are inadvertently fighter centric anyway. Also regarding player numbers you can have 400 plus flyers on a good night. I understand that is nowhere near the heady days of the golden age of flight sims but being a fairly niche product it's pretty good. 

Edit: I would also add that people don't seem to have any problems finding my 110 or shooting it down for that matter. 

Well not literally lumping all the targets together in a single location. But not scattering them too much either 

A greater density of players would mean bombers having escorts instead of every plane going lone wolf. 
I’ve never seen 400 people online in this sim. Until recently and probably because of the lockdown the only active server would be WoL

47 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Guess what Sharpe; there is life outside the United States.  Euro evening times there are regularly over three hundred people online.

Not here... 

 

Admittedly I am rather out of touch with the current state of MP as I’ve given it up after so much time with the above issues. Combat Box seemed to do the target placement better but it was continually vacant in favor of WOL. Even at hours when a US time zone server should have been full. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by SharpeXB

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, [DBS]Browning said:

It's just past peak time right now, but there are still 475 people online in about26 active servers. 6 servers have over 50 players each.

 

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Admittedly I am rather out of touch with the current state of MP 

 

Aaaand.........there we have it folks!   Goodnight

[CountZero]

Last weekend there was 600+ players in servers around 21h gmt, and probably few more trying to enter now regualyr full CB TAW WOL VirtualPilots and ACG was runing full server also, and then there was full WW1 server and one mix tanks and airlanes, and berloga was almost full. Maybe year ago WoL and when Taw run you had 2 full servers, but now i regulary see 2-3 or even 4 full servers, but peak times are bewten 20-22CET i dont know how its american eavnings but i bet CB is more popular at that times then others.

Numbers jump up in MP when last BoBp airplanes come out and then jump again when we got crazy sales of BoBp on web and steam now, if netcode is not so bad i bet 100-120 server limit would be to small at peak times.

 

Regarding grouping targets, your missing point that ground attack airplanes wont to hit targets and get back, they dont wont to see enemy airplanes, so flying on half full server is great when targets are scatared, but you can still fined them if you look at their preferances in targets so it just takes some observation and youll fuiger out what targets/ objectives players on servers like to hit, and most servers have info when targets are hit. Grouping targets could be posible but would GA guy like that, i bet fighters would, but on low number times GA or bomber guys are ones coming on server first filing it up, and then they atract more players who hunt them, so making job harder for them on fast food servers would maybe reduce numbers on low number times.

 

Regarding Berloga they select what map is best performing for most action, its just training and quick action server i doubt most players there care what map is on it, but maybe im wrong, it should not be to hard for them to rotate maps if they wont.

 

TAW has to have deadly AAA to not alow solo generals ruining what teams are doing, its ment to be played as group so making AAA to easy for solo players is no go. 

[Beazil]

You are most certainly welcome to fly with us as well if and when it strikes your fancy Sharpe.

Related:. Comms.  Discuss.

Edited May 3, 2020 by JG51_Beazil

[SharpeXB]

I started this post to avoid running off topic elsewhere, to answer why I don’t play online. 
MP has got a boost from the lockdown for certain. For most of the life of this sim going back to the very beginning, multiplayer has been a ghost town from where I see it. Central US Time. Combat Box didn’t launch until 2019 and it was the only server in the Western Hemisphere with any players and it would still be empty most days. I think CB does a lot of what I’m looking for in mission design so it was disappointing to see it unpopulated most of the time. 
There’s clearly factors that keep players away or make MP unappealing for most players though.
For now I suppose ride the wave and hope it lasts (not the virus part) 

[Beazil]

About 70+ on there a minute ago.  The server just regurgitated the players and the map just reset so it might take a minute to get back up.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, CountZero said:

TAW has to have deadly AAA to not alow solo generals ruining what teams are doing, its ment to be played as group so making AAA to easy for solo players is no go. 

That’s a silly choice. I go online to play against other players not to play against AI gunners. The AI steals kills from you when you try to defend targets.

So I just don’t bother with TAW. 

[357th_KW]

I think what MP really needs to be better is some additional tools for players and mission builders to make teamwork easier, and some netcode improvements.  Flying during US primetime today on Combat Box, and there were no other players on discord on the Allied side (on CB, Sherriff, or Requiem's discord servers).  Out of 40 players on the team.  I'm sure some were on squad coms, but some sort of coms integration would be HUGE.  It would also be hugely helpful if there was some sort of radar and controller type features to help focus a teams efforts.  Supposedly some of this will come with the Air Marshall stuff, but who knows when that will be.  Right now a mission designer can't even mask the opposing teams objectives from the players, or provide customized briefings for each team.  The end result is a lot of attackers suiciding on the targets to win the map, and a lot of fighters hovering over friendly targets to try to protect them. 

 

Which brings me to netcode.  Flying on Combat Box today, I saw multiple cases where enemy aircraft simply weren't being rendered for me - I could see the flak chasing them - I could see the friendlies chasing and then shooting at them - but they just weren't being rendered for me.  I finally was able to see one of them and chased him back towards his base where I was promptly swarmed by enemies.  But hey - at least I didn't circle aimlessly for another 30 minutes chasing invisible planes at the objective.  Last night playing on the "Mitchell's Men" map while escorting the bombers I rolled in behind a 190 coming in to attack them.  He tried to evade for a minute or so, and then after taking numerous hits just went suicidal and turned for the bombers.  3 other friendlies latched onto him, and we peppered him all the way to the bombers, where he shot one down before the AI gunners PKed him and took the kill.  The server promptly crashed a few minutes later - it's likely that much of the gunfire wasn't registering for him due to server performance and netcode.  Stuff like this just really sucks the fun out of the game. 

 

I find myself wondering if we wouldn't be better off with smaller servers (say 40-ish max), with missions designed for lower player counts.

Edited May 3, 2020 by KW_1979

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, CountZero said:

Regarding Berloga they select what map is best performing for most action, its just training and quick action server i doubt most players there care what map is on it, but maybe im wrong, it should not be to hard for them to rotate maps if they wont.

RoF had some good quick action servers with just a little more imagination than Berloga. 

[=420=Syphen]

Just from tonight alone ..  And it's been like this frequently for a month or two.  It's not just one server full like you postulate. The community has grown. Maybe you should come online, join some discords and teamspeaks and play with others instead of just playing singleplayer. 

[SharpeXB]

Tonight CB was full and WoL had 40ish. So I did WoL again but it’s the same old stuff. A scenic flight across the map, really the Caucuses is just gorgeous. Saw a few friendlies but otherwise no contact. Maybe 40 minutes. Again with only that many players on such a big space there’s very little chance of seeing anyone. And I can see them very well when I do, I have no trouble spotting targets which are actually there like my own guys. But compared with tonights previous SP career mission full of action, MP is just too dull. And it’s the same deal with the target placement. They’re spaced in this front line at about 15km apart. The players can only see another aircraft at maybe 7km. So they can’t see each other from target to target. If these same ground targets were grouped closer together it would generate encounters.

[Talon_]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Combat Box seemed to do the target placement better but it was continually vacant in favor of WOL. Even at hours when a US time zone server should have been full. 

 

This makes no sense as we have literally double the unique player number of WoL month by month at ~4,000 and more hours flown by both sides.

 

What's more I can log on and get five kills in a single sortie.

 

Your problem is user error.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Talon_

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Lol.  WoL needs to be majorly maintenance for missions.    

 

Was on a mission a few hours ago.  Axis had more points and needed to destroy 4 targets.  Allies had less points but only had to get rid of one target.  The timer ran out and Axis won. 

Last night on a different mission the same thing happened.  I am positive the last target was 99% destroyed too.  

 

1 hour ago, Talon_ said:

 

This makes no sense as we have literally double the unique player number of WoL month by month at ~4,000 and more hours flown by both sides.

 

Yep and probably enough donors to make a for-profit business out of it too.  Mind you, it certainly doesn't pay the bills as a "main job" but, I'm fairly sure there's more money coming in than overhead cost going out.  

[[DBS]TH0R]

Allow me to also chime in. Difference being I fly MP exclusively, so this will be first hand experience / impressions, from a person who is doing MP in flight sims for about 15 years now:

 

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Here’s the problem:

Every server mission anticipates a full attendance and missions designed with targets scattered all over a large map. Honestly they are too scattered. Given the number of players even when full at 84, the targets are so remote and combined with visibility issues, the players will rarely see or engage one another, Indeed you can orbit a target for 40 minutes and you won’t see a single enemy plane come to attack it. So that’s just not good mission design to begin with. But with a partially full server this is even worse. The result is just boredom of searching or waiting around targets with little action. It makes multiplayer sessions needlessly long and it’s harder to encourage people to play online with such a time commitment which can’t be paused or left unattended. 

It just doesn’t make to any good use of your gameplay time especially now with an engaging SP career to compete with. Again the result of this is about zero growth in the number seen online, definitely not an attendance that reflects the growth of the game as a whole.

 

The mission design is somewhat an issue, but nowhere near as big or as important as you perceive it to be. That it results in "orbiting a target for 40 minutes and not seeing a single plane" is only true if you fly off peek hours and on a low populated server. Targets are regularly attacked and enemy planes are there in abundance. There are servers with large flight distances and those with shorter ones - and such different targets on the same map.

 

No SP gameplay or AI can replace a human pilot flying against you. Once you've experienced it there is no going back. Fighting against AI is merely a shooting practice, nothing else. That is why many of us do MP. While SP is definitely immersive and engaging, MP is best enjoyed with a couple of friends. And that is IMHO the biggest show stopper for some.

 

Then there are organized events. Best MP experience by a long shot.

 

 

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Solutions:

Better mission design. Group the targets into fewer areas and more central to the airfields or spawn locations. Don’t place them randomly all over the map and way out towards the edges. Create an environment where players will actually see and engage one another. Most of the current missions I see would probably require 200 players to populate them effectively. 
Server admins could look at attendance data and run smaller missions during times where they know attendance will be small. 

 

Mission building takes time and skill. Most of us fly during peek hours for best experience. Locating and attacking a live target on a less populated server is a very good practice as well.

 

To improve seeing one another - we need a more realistic spotting system. I agree on that one.

 

 

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Game Improvements. 

The game does not scale itself for the number of players. It would be great if the MP mission could scale itself up or down depending on the number of players. Many other games have different map sizes depending on the number of players. The map is intended for say 32 or 64 people, they don’t put 12 players on a map designed for 64. The 84 player limit isn’t realistic most days.

 

The key factor here is balance on both teams. Not scaling down. This was a lesson learned from older flight sims, and for a long time servers did not enforce team balance. Thus people (myself included) stopped flying for a while. Disparity in plane released (many LW planes vs. very few Allied) also contributed to that greatly. Since every server tried their best to feature the latest and greatest released planes. Thankfully, this is no longer the case as BOBP was released and both teams have plenty of planes to chose from.

 

Some serves lost their popularity by forcing their own rules that don't appeal to the majority (e.g. long respawn timers if you get shot down or killed). What I am trying to say is that server design is not just about the maps, but overall picture and settings and rules used.

 

The scalability you mention is mainly lacking in server difficulty settings. Unless you fly full switch, people who like to fly with external views and icons on - aside from Berloga, have no where to go. It shouldn't be for hard core group only. Back in IL-2 1946 there were many servers with varying difficulty settings. Not here... See my later comments about MP interface.

 

 

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Get rid of Alternate Visibility. This game is too small to have features which divide up an already small base.

 

No server is using is, so it became pointless. Instead, get read of unrealistic (stock) visibility and introduce something that is not perfect but works. Alternate visibility was a step in the right direction, flawed by over doing the rendering distance. Scaling is needed. Period. If there is no other way but to have two visibility settings (as in scaling on and off), then create two useful settings - not like now where we have one that is broken and other down right unusable for MP.

 

 

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Some specific suggestions

Berloga: Do a map rotation! You’ve been running the same map for eons! Have some imagination. Make some different mission layout.
 

TAW. I may be out of date on this one since this particular issue made me give up on it. Turn down the AAA lethality! This is supposed to be player vs player and not player vs AI

 

Agreed for Beloga, and for TAW - bring friends. Some targets are better attacked en masse.

 

 

And now for the most important bit that would help with MP: we need a proper, modern MP interface. Just look at what Hyperlobby did for the old IL-2 '46. That piece of software alone was the biggest contributor why that title succeeded in MP and is today considered by some as "golden days of flight sim MP".

 

Current implementation of MP features are wasted (most evident the coop feature) due to completely inadequate MP interface. There are barely any filters when selecting a server, no favorites and many other features that are standard nowadays for MP games.

 

This alone is the biggest reason IMHO why MP numbers are rising so slowly, followed closely by unrealistic spotting system.

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by [DBS]TH0R

[[CPT]milopugdog]

Sharpe,

There are different servers with different map making techniques. I've noticed that WOL has very short flight times, pretty much parallel objectives. Combat Box has unsymmetrical objectives, longer flight times. Also a different plane set. It isn't really a problem I don't think, just like, different strokes for different folks, 'ya know? I don't mind flying half an hour to a target in a Bf-110. I'm not playing Combat Box because I was cheap fast action.

 

There's other reasons for this too, of course. closer objectives encourage air-quaking and mission sweeping. I especially remember that when I would play WOL a lot more a few years back. Couple of dudes would hop in Pe-2s, and sweep the map in about an hour. Not too much fun.

 

In terms of running smaller missions when less attendance is anticipated, from what I understand from playing with the Dserver tool; missions are loaded into the software. You can have them be selected from a stack in order, or randomized. From there, you can have conditions for map rolling be time based, and victory based if that is a condition in your mission. If it is possible to have a mission get changed when the player count drops, that would be a cool idea.

 

52 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

Lol.  WoL needs to be majorly maintenance for missions.    

 

-snip-

WoL still has missions from when I started playing the game and it was just BoS. The "my first mission" one that's on Stalingrad is one of those. Only it used to be a winter map, and they adjusted the season when the new Stalingrad maps got added.

[CountZero]

On 5/3/2020 at 7:20 AM, Talon_ said:

 

This makes no sense as we have literally double the unique player number of WoL month by month at ~4,000 and more hours flown by both sides.

 

What's more I can log on and get five kills in a single sortie.

 

Your problem is user error.

CB active players is edited from default 7 days to show all players that played on it in last 32 days, so its not active players its total players who joined and didnt even have to play more then 1min whole month Players inactive for more than 32 days - do not participate in the rating.

While WoL have active players count showing players that played last 7 days atleast one combat mission, Players inactive for more than 7 days - do not participate in the rating.

So your comparing differant numbers. if you look at first 7 days in month youll see more real represantation. You can edit stats to show more players easy by that option by increseng numbers of days it counts, checking numbers now in 3 days wol have 1314 active players and cb 1143 and wol have more flight time, and if you check on 07.05 youll see real state, at best CB has almost same numbers of active players like WoL, when i checked last few months it was less by few 100.

Virtual Pilots have 2072 active players now so it seams its more popular then CB and WoL by jour logic, but when you check in more detail youll see they count Players inactive for more than 90 days - do not participate in the rating. so for them count didnt start at first days of this month like on CB or WoL but it started to count last month and will do so for next month also without removing inactive players for lenght of whole tour like CB do for its tour of 1 month.

You can artificaly boost numbers on your server like this if you wont to brag by them with no problems.

 

 

CB is rising in new players faster then WoL or VP:

i check total numbers of users in dec 19:

WoL had: 33786 and now it has 36333, gain of ~2500 new players in few months this year

CB had 8575 and now it has 12631, gain of ~4000 new players in few months this year

VP had 9642 and now it has 12003, gain of ~2500 new players in few months this year

 

And that also show that compared to numbers of first 5 months in last year there is incress in new players also as dec18 WoL had 27707 and in 5.19 it had 29690 so + of ~2000 compared to this year in + of ~2500 and they dont even have missions with new BoBp airplanes, CB probably doubled that this year compared to numbers it had first few months last year (didnt bather to check them as server was new then). And for VP its even more popular this year as for last year they were almost at same numbers for long time +-few 100s.

 

 

EDIT:

checked numbers at 7th day in month and no suprise WoL have incrised differance, and now has 2256 active players while CB is at same time at 1869, so ~400 less, and flight times are also in WoL favor by ~2000h . Also i asked WoL admins how mutch "unique player number" per month they have and they responed atleast 3 times what is 7 day active players, that would be ~6500. So it seams east front is still mutch more popular then west front when player numbers on both servers are compared in same time.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by CountZero

[LeLv30_Redwing-]

39 minutes ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

 

 

And now for the most important bit that would help with MP: we need a proper, modern MP interface. Just look at what Hyperlobby did for the old IL-2 '46. That piece of software alone was the biggest contributor why that title succeeded in MP and is today considered by some as "golden days of flight sim MP".

 

Current implementation of MP features are wasted (most evident the coop feature) due to completely inadequate MP interface. There are barely any filters when selecting a server, no favorites and many other features that are standard nowadays for MP games.

 

This alone is the biggest reason IMHO why MP numbers are rising so slowly, followed closely by unrealistic spotting system.

 

 

THIS HERE.

Hyperlobby still exists but for some reason this game is not using that tested platform but dev's are not creating their own, either. With easier interface to use fly coops and maybe some sort of coop based online-war this online community reach totally different numbers. We are getting constantly nice new graphical features but failing in this IMHO way too more important sector.

[CountZero]

7 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

That’s a silly choice. I go online to play against other players not to play against AI gunners. The AI steals kills from you when you try to defend targets.

So I just don’t bother with TAW. 

Its not ment for players like you or me, its ment for teams and teams can handle strong AAA AI, and as its dynamic campaign individual stats are less important, so if kill goues to AI who cares, guys who do the work to win mission do not care about individual stats there, its only about that target is destroyed wheres next one to move the front or win count.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

1 hour ago, CountZero said:

teams can handle strong AAA AI

@unreasonable did extensive testing on the characteristics of AAA many months back in game the AI gunners are about 10 times more effective as the real-world equivalent. Many servers have them set to maximum difficulty which in some cases is overkill. 

[=420=Syphen]

2 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

@unreasonable did extensive testing on the characteristics of AAA many months back in game the AI gunners are about 10 times more effective as the real-world equivalent. Many servers have them set to maximum difficulty which in some cases is overkill. 

 

 

Even at the most difficult setting, it's easy for a few guys in 110's or PE-2's to sterilize an airfield of it's AAA before mopping up other targets... so long as no fighter cover bounces them.  As @CountZero mentioned, it's meant to be challenging because that's what people want.  I'm sure some people would prefer more realism but the vast majority would prepfer the challenge.

[Talon_]

6 hours ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

Yep and probably enough donors to make a for-profit business out of it too.  Mind you, it certainly doesn't pay the bills as a "main job" but, I'm fairly sure there's more money coming in than overhead cost going out.  

 

The main NYC server cost is $90 before tax, so in fact we only make a few dollars profit and that's before the electricity and bandwidth costs of running the second server from Alonzo's basement. Every few months we have though change to buy a copy of the game and give it away to the community.

[SharpeXB]

8 hours ago, Talon_ said:

 

This makes no sense as we have literally double the unique player number of WoL month by month at ~4,000 and more hours flown by both sides

That’s good to know. I had wondered what the actually server stats showed. 
But for too many years WoL was the ONLY server which regularly had players from where I’m looking 

[Barnacles]

1 hour ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

 

 

Even at the most difficult setting, it's easy for a few guys in 110's or PE-2's to sterilize an airfield of it's AAA before mopping up other targets... so long as no fighter cover bounces them.  As @CountZero mentioned, it's meant to be challenging because that's what people want.  I'm sure some people would prefer more realism but the vast majority would prepfer the challenge.

I think in some way it illustrates one of@SharpeXB's points he made about the MP servers' dependence on population. I know quite a lot of people who'll do ground attack on a low population MP server, as it's a challenge. Effectively they are doing PvE coop. This means that people are predisposed to ask for stuff that's challenging, rather than realistic, and the degree of the challenge entirely depends on the population of the server.

[SharpeXB]

7 hours ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

 

No SP gameplay or AI can replace a human pilot flying against you. Once you've experienced it there is no going back. Fighting against AI is merely a shooting practice, nothing else. That is why many of us do MP. While SP is definitely immersive and engaging, MP is best enjoyed with a couple of friends. And that is IMHO the biggest show stopper for some.

 

This depends on the player of course. Some human players you can simply bounce and kill without any maneuvering. If there’s an unrealistic aspect to the AI it’s that they can’t be surprised.
I’ve played flight sims for 10 years and lots of MP in this game and RoF. I look at games as a form of entertainment and not a sport and SP tends to simply be more entertaining. I do like developing skills at this though and one reason I don’t like endless no contact MP is simply that your skills deteriorate doing that. 

7 hours ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

That it results in "orbiting a target for 40 minutes and not seeing a single plane" is only true if you fly off peek hours and on a low populated server.

 

Although I do apparently fly on off peak hours, I get the same experience on full servers. It’s been that way ever since this game launched. MP hasn’t changed in any meaningful way, some of the missions are still the same as they were at the beginning. 
Watch how rarely the “target attacked” message comes up indicating a target anywhere near you. It rarely does. 

7 hours ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

 

The scalability you mention is mainly lacking in server difficulty settings.

I’m not sure how the scalability of targets would work on a flight sim, it’s a solution used by many other games though. They have maps designed for specific numbers of slots. We can’t do that obviously or have matchmaking etc. 
Perhaps the mission starts with only a few targets and dynamically adds more as more players join. But the problem remains, with a partially full server, having too many far apart targets. It just doesn’t work very well. 

[DD_Arthur]

Just.....lol.

[SharpeXB]

Whatever. 
Someone asked why I don’t play online very much, there’s your answer. 

13 hours ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

Just from tonight alone ..  And it's been like this frequently for a month or two.  It's not just one server full like you postulate. The community has grown. Maybe you should come online, join some discords and teamspeaks and play with others instead of just playing singleplayer. 

So that's about what I see here, this is prime time weekend US under stay at home orders game time. Maximum attendance situation.

This shows only two servers worth playing on (meeting my preferences and nearly full) The servers with 8 or 16 players aren't worth joining.

So why can't this be done with the map? Humor me with my weak graphic skills and mission making

Flying on this today it still took a half hour before two enemy planes showed up over the target at 2130

 

[=420=Syphen]

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Whatever. 
Someone asked why I don’t play online very much, there’s your answer. 

So that's about what I see here, this is prime time weekend US under stay at home orders game time. Maximum attendance situation.

This shows only two servers worth playing on (meeting my preferences and nearly full) The servers with 8 or 16 players aren't worth joining.

 

 

And you just showed that your own statement about there 'Only one server, not even full' is a crock.  You talk in stubborn hyperbole which is why you butt heads with so many and end up in drawn out forum arguments. And when people just point things out you go on the hard defense. Grow up - learn to accept that everyone is entitled to an opinion and you don't need to argue them all to a standstill and have final words.

Edited May 3, 2020 by [CPT]HawkeyeP

[SharpeXB]

Now this is a better mission. This is the sort I saw on CB that I would want to play on. This was full of action over the targets because they're closer together

 

 

54 minutes ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

 

 

And you just showed that your own statement about there 'Only one server, not even full' is a crock.  

Go easy on the ranting dude...

What I'm saying is when I get online I see only one server worth it for me to get on

not worthwhile are:

- Half full or nearly empty servers

- Completely full servers I can't join obviously

- Ones that don't meet my preferences, everyone has a preference that's fine. But a healthy environment would have something for everyone's tastes

6 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Many servers have them set to maximum difficulty which in some cases is overkill. 

I can see the logic of having expert AAA around the airfields to deter vulching (unless that’s part of the mission plan) but otherwise it makes no sense. I don’t see vulching as necessarily unsporting but that’s another topic. 

8 hours ago, CountZero said:

Its not ment for players like you or me, its ment for teams and teams can handle strong AAA AI, and as its dynamic campaign individual stats are less important, so if kill goues to AI who cares, guys who do the work to win mission do not care about individual stats there, its only about that target is destroyed wheres next one to move the front or win count.

I find TAW to be ludicrous so I just stay away from there. Again I play online to play against other humans and not against AI AAA gunners. It isn’t even realistic. I could be wrong but I doubt WWII aircraft conducted SEAD missions against enemy AAA guns as part of their missions. That sounds like something from an arcade game “Destroy all the anti-aircraft guns before the bombers arrive!”

Such strong AAA dominates all the gameplay and makes player participation irrelevant. Want to win a game on TAW? Just stay away from the enemy targets and let your AAA win the match for you ?
See like just today on that CB last mission above I attacked an He-111 over one of the targets, he shot me up, I shot him up and a good time was had by all. On TAW the AAA would have just blown this bomber out of the sky. No fun for either of us. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by SharpeXB

[CountZero]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Whatever. 
Someone asked why I don’t play online very much, there’s your answer. 

So that's about what I see here, this is prime time weekend US under stay at home orders game time. Maximum attendance situation.

This shows only two servers worth playing on (meeting my preferences and nearly full) The servers with 8 or 16 players aren't worth joining.

So why can't this be done with the map? Humor me with my weak graphic skills and mission making

Flying on this today it still took a half hour before two enemy planes showed up over the target at 2130

 

 

I think BoBp map is sometimes problematic because of lack of airbases at some area, if devs alow mission makers to place their own bases ( like Il-2 1946 could) flight times could be more frendyer. Kuban map has that problem also at some areas of map. but you can just skip mission that you dont like and go on berloga and wait for ones you like. 

You should check some of the low number servers maybe some had type of missions you like and you dont know as they are empty, why server is full is not always to its good mission or what not its just most payers see server with higher numbers and join it by default, there is probably serverswith great mission design but populated servers eat up most ppl by default, if Wol just started few months ago, and not being main server since game beguin, i doubt it would be full every day.

Edited May 3, 2020 by CountZero

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

8 hours ago, Talon_ said:

 

The main NYC server cost is $90 before tax, so in fact we only make a few dollars profit and that's before the electricity and bandwidth costs of running the second server from Alonzo's basement. Every few months we have though change to buy a copy of the game and give it away to the community.

 

Fair enough.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

On 5/2/2020 at 6:27 PM, SharpeXB said:

 

Admittedly I am rather out of touch with the current state of MP 

 

When you have no clue what is going on it is absolutely the best time to tell everyone what they’re doing wrong.