What happened to all the players?

[Aero-Jaeger]

Hi all,

 

Maybe someone could shed some light as to what happened to all the multiplayer servers. Usually on Saturdays it used to be packed (atleast the most popular ones). Now they are barely populated. Anyone has any insights?

[Chief_Mouser]

I think you might need to do some forum reading. So many changes since February of last year and hardly a one of them positive.

Plus the sun is out. ?

[Zeev]

And a moderator that "cleaned" the forum and ran away.

It became not so fun surfing here in general and single player content forum due to unnecessary changes.

[Otto_bann]

This has been a constant and growing trend in recent years, and I don't think it's the simulator's fault. The good weather doesn't help, of course, but the trend is there.

I think that players are tired of logging on to any server whose briefing clearly and predominantly expresses ground attack missions, but where in the end they are faced with a very large majority of fighters who do nothing but hunt: all servers are now just some other Berloga servers, which I think is the only real server dedicated to hunting and only hunting. Briefings are not read most of the time, the majority take off to find a plane to shoot down as quickly as possible, that's all.

Many jabo and high altitude bomber pilots (rarely covered...) have given up because too many fighters against them (with their current ballistics) make them too easy targets. So these ex-jabo / bomber pilots give up bombing, or they also take up a fighter (because it's less dangerous) but... that just makes the problem worse. Others have simply given up on multiplayer, or only play co-op, or worse, have simply given up on the game.

 

This simulator is too many time badly used by players themselve, IMO.

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Otto_bann

[Guest deleted@83466]

I think it’s probably of a lot simpler than that.  To point out the obvious, in people with normal attention spans, lack of novelty leads to boredom.  Even for someone very enthusiastic and interested, how many hundreds or thousands of hours can you basically do the same thing before you simply crave something new?  And I don’t think many people in their teens and twenties are coming in to replace the old monied men who make up the core player base and have moved on to other things (or died).

[Leon_Portier]

3 minutes ago, Otto_bann said:

This has been a constant and growing trend in recent years, and I don't think it's the simulator's fault. The good weather doesn't help, of course, but the trend is there.

I think that players are tired of logging on to any server whose briefing clearly and predominantly expresses ground attack missions, but where in the end they are faced with a very large majority of fighters who do nothing but hunt: all servers are now just copies of Berloga, which I think is the only real server dedicated to hunting and only hunting. Briefings are not read most of the time, the majority take off to find a plane to shoot down as quickly as possible, that's all.

Many jabo and high altitude bomber pilots have given up because too many fighters (with their current ballistics) make them too easy targets. So these ex-jabo / bomber pilots give up bombing, or they also take up a fighter (because it's less dangerous) but... that just makes the problem worse. Others have simply given up on multiplayer, or only play co-op, or worse, have simply given up on the game.

 

Yup, I've been flying ground attacker sorties for a long time. Not being able to even get near the objectives in MP made me question why. Now I drive the Tanks.

[Otto_bann]

1 hour ago, SeaSerpent said:

... To point out the obvious, in people with normal attention spans, lack of novelty leads to boredom....

 

Not true. ex: chess game exist since + 1000 years : no evolution but games are still played by millions. Many more recent games  (+10 years) on PC are still played by millions each day.

 

Reduce this simulator like a vulgar balltrap with planes for targets, will finish by kill him. I don't say we have to stop dogfights. I say we make it the most part of time at wrong places and to much : in servers like Cbox or others, the briefing don't say " you have to shootdown many planes as possible". Briefings say rather "you have to crush many ground targets as possible" : it's VERY different.

 

1 hour ago, [N.O.G.F]Leon_Portier said:

Yup, I've been flying ground attacker sorties for a long time. Not being able to even get near the objectives in MP made me question why. Now I drive the Tanks.

 

The problem is that the majority of players still playing now on this simutator are fighters... They aren't jabo and less bomber pilots : It will be tricky for them to change before drag the game until death.

 

Maybe we miss also alternative dogfight servers, better (with missions less basical) than Berloga .

Edited May 27, 2023 by Otto_bann

[Guest deleted@83466]

2 hours ago, Otto_bann said:

 

Not true. ex: chess game exist since + 1000 years : no evolution but games are still played by millions. Many more recent games  (+10 years) on PC are still played by millions each day.

 

 

yeah, whatever…

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

23 hours ago, Otto_bann said:

I think that players are tired of logging on to any server whose briefing clearly and predominantly expresses ground attack missions, but where in the end they are faced with a very large majority of fighters who do nothing but hunt: all servers are now just some other Berloga servers, which I think is the only real server dedicated to hunting and only hunting. Briefings are not read most of the time, the majority take off to find a plane to shoot down as quickly as possible, that's all.

 

23 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

I think it’s probably of a lot simpler than that.  To point out the obvious, in people with normal attention spans, lack of novelty leads to boredom.  Even for someone very enthusiastic and interested, how many hundreds or thousands of hours can you basically do the same thing before you simply crave something new?  

 

 

You're both right. Having every server devolve into the majority of people just camping in space roaming for easy kills is lack of novelty.

 

I blame the stat system, we're using the same scoreboard and stat site across all the servers, and K/D tends to be the golden stat the majority cares about, and it doesn't track the quality of kill you get. Killing Player-123456 who's flying a JU 52 three times in a row is worth the same as winning a 3v1 against three top 1% players in better planes. It's not surprising this leads to people just doing what's rewarded by setting themselves up for easy safe kills, as they're worth the same as hard risky kills. And of course if you want easy safe kills, you camp your side of the map, and every server feels like the same thing. 

 

To get more varied gameplay the rewards (stats) would have to be customized for each server to reflect the servers gameplay goals. Gamers are simple creatures who just follow the points. I say this as someone who loves Berloga, but we already have Berloga.

[Otto_bann]

19 hours ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

Gamers are simple creatures who just follow the points... we already have Berloga.

 

It depends about what kind of game (for chess in my exemple... or PC gaming where a large part of strategy is necessary, I don't think so).

 

Most of players in our simulator can't be only simple : if they can't see that it's their own way they play this game is the 1st reason why we lost our players, I see 3 possibilities more :

 

- they are blind
- they aren't honest
- they make no effort to think

 

Players can do more than wait for a miracle and constat the trend of leak of connexions.

 

Aand this addiction to novelty is a trap and an illusion.

 

The community (of players AND mission / server conceptors) has the potential to evolve too.

 

Berloga is a good server for DF, but it's too basical and too dangerous for many of us IMO. It miss something and this gap probably creates a bad transfer to ground attack servers.

 

And personnal stats (less squad stats) are probably the cancer of this simulator (at least in his form like now) : it THE best promotor of easy kills by all way as possible and  it discourage often to use of anything other than a fighter

Edited May 29, 2023 by Otto_bann

[JG5_Schuck]

I can think of a couple of reasons......
1) the game needs a Hyperlobby, somewhere we can all chat, meet to set up matches etc.
2) most servers have the oddest plane sets, would love to seen more early war stuff progressing to the end with a realistic plane set within the timeframe. I personally jump straight out of a server with F4 and K4's, Spit V's and P51's on the same map!
3) the player base is being eroded by other games that can hold peoples attention, this game just isn't the same as IL2, Forgotten battles etc.
plus most of the guys and myself who started off 20 years ago, have got responsibilities now, and just don't have the amount of time we used to...

 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

3 hours ago, Otto_bann said:

 

It depends about what kind of game (for chess in my exemple... or PC gaming where a large part of strategy is necessary, I don't think so).

 

Most of players in our simulator can't be only simple : if they can't see that it's their own way they play this game is the 1st reason why we lost our players, I see 3 possibilities more :

 

- they are blind
- they aren't honest
- they make no effort to think

 

Players can do more than wait for a miracle and constat the trend of leak of connexions.

 

Aand this addiction to novelty is a trap and an illusion.

 

The community (of players AND mission / server conceptors) has the potential to evolve too.

 

Berloga is a good server for DF, but it's too basical and too dangerous for many of us IMO. It miss something and this gap probably creates a bad transfer to ground attack servers.

 

And personnal stats (less squad stats) are probably the cancer of this simulator (at least in his form like now) : it THE best promotor of easy kills by all way as possible and  it discourage often to use of anything other than a fighter

Chess players are the same as gamers. They make their moves based on what will help them win the match and gain a win point. Its human nature to do things that are rewarded, and to not do things that are fruitless or punished. That's why it's important to make sure rewards are properly doled out for fun/skillful gameplay, and that boring/easy gameplay is fruitless or less rewarding. 

 

Just look at war thunder as a prime example. People there do painfully boring grinds for hours and hours just because they are point slaves, not because they enjoy the gameplay. Think how better that game could be if fun gameplay was rewarded at the same rate or better than the boring grinds. The same thing is happening in IL2, but to a much lesser degree.

 

I'd actually argue Berloga is perfect for ground attackers to practice because of the danger and chaos furballs, not in spite of it. Ground attacking is the most dangerous role in the game, you have to be prepared to fight with the odds against you, and getting constantly bounced and gangbanged in Berloga is the perfect preparation for being a ground attacker.

[Otto_bann]

1 hour ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

Chess players are the same as gamers. They make their moves based on what will help them win the match and gain a win point. Its human nature to do things that are rewarded, and to not do things that are fruitless or punished. That's why it's important to make sure rewards are properly doled out for fun/skillful gameplay, and that boring/easy gameplay is fruitless or less rewarding. 

 

Just look at war thunder as a prime example. People there do painfully boring grinds for hours and hours just because they are point slaves, not because they enjoy the gameplay. Think how better that game could be if fun gameplay was rewarded at the same rate or better than the boring grinds. The same thing is happening in IL2, but to a much lesser degree.

 

I'd actually argue Berloga is perfect for ground attackers to practice because of the danger and chaos furballs, not in spite of it. Ground attacking is the most dangerous role in the game, you have to be prepared to fight with the odds against you, and getting constantly bounced and gangbanged in Berloga is the perfect preparation for being a ground attacker.

 

Chess players are looking for strategy at 1st, the level is not the same. Push the trottle, pull Gs and push the trigger... is not a strategy like the war IRL nedded : where is the strategy when 90% pilots take off without read the briefing, heading directly to fight as soon as possible on the 1st plane seen (tracers rather, it's more easy...) and don't care about ground targets which are the only way to win the mission by crushing them yet? Nowhere...

 

What they want, it's increase their own stats and shotdown the most planes as possible, even if they have to die for some. They don't have any respect about for what goal the mission has made, nor the job realized to built the mission.

Human nature is not made to reduce an activity to a small fraction of itself, but to understand it as a whole. What you say, it's only for the part of those who don't have understood the activity : soccer is not reduced at penalties, poker is not reduced at bluff, chess is not a game limited as take the 1st pawn seen...

 

Why co-op missions (which have the same briefings as most ground attack servers) are played so differently? And why so many guys play this sim solo now...?

 

Our simulator isn't one anymore : it's reduced like a vulgar shooting game, that's all and so, it became uninteresting and that's why we have lost so many guys.

Edited May 29, 2023 by Otto_bann

[Bemused]

Seagulls hovering over friendly objectives ready to dive down en-masse on to one or two attackers?  Mine! Mine! Mine!

 

Rings very true with some servers being worse than others.  Myself and a friend have always tried to attack objectives because it is beyond tedious to fly in circles above friendly objectives.  We ask repeatedly for cover but it is a rare thing to get any replies.  On arrival typically manage to get some bombs off before the horde arrives. 

 

As you describe Otto, we have recently switched over to fighters but just to head over enemy territory to engage the Seagulls.  We are still mostly outnumbered.  In fairness to Wings of Liberty people tend to attack the objectives there but no chance to play the last two play sets (mostly).

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

2 hours ago, Otto_bann said:

 

Chess players are looking for strategy at 1st, the level is not the same. Push the trottle, pull Gs and push the trigger... is not a strategy like the war IRL nedded : where is the strategy when 90% pilots take off without read the briefing, heading directly to fight as soon as possible on the 1st plane seen (tracers rather, it's more easy...) and don't care about ground targets which are the only way to win the mission by crushing them yet? Nowhere...

 

What they want, it's increase their own stats and shotdown the most planes as possible, even if they have to die for some. They don't have any respect about for what goal the mission has made, nor the job realized to built the mission.

Human nature is not made to reduce an activity to a small fraction of itself, but to understand it as a whole. What you say, it's only for the part of those who don't have understood the activity : soccer is not reduced at penalties, poker is not reduced at bluff, chess is not a game limited as take the 1st pawn seen...

 

Why co-op missions (which have the same briefings as most ground attack servers) are played so differently? And why so many guys play this sim solo now...?

 

Our simulator isn't one anymore : it's reduced like a vulgar shooting game, that's all and so, it became uninteresting and that's why we have lost so many guys.

I agree that chess players and campers are not the same in terms of complexity, but they are the same in terms of following whatever gets them the win/kills. Right now all kills are treated equally in the stats, so theres no incentive for campers not to camp, is what I'm getting at, and that's a big reason why we see such simple gameplay loops in IL2.

[Barnacles]

 

 

On 5/27/2023 at 7:22 PM, Otto_bann said:

This has been a constant and growing trend in recent years, and I don't think it's the simulator's fault. The good weather doesn't help, of course, but the trend is there.

I think that players are tired of logging on to any server whose briefing clearly and predominantly expresses ground attack missions, but where in the end they are faced with a very large majority of fighters who do nothing but hunt: all servers are now just some other Berloga servers, which I think is the only real server dedicated to hunting and only hunting. Briefings are not read most of the time, the majority take off to find a plane to shoot down as quickly as possible, that's all.

Many jabo and high altitude bomber pilots (rarely covered...) have given up because too many fighters against them (with their current ballistics) make them too easy targets. So these ex-jabo / bomber pilots give up bombing, or they also take up a fighter (because it's less dangerous) but... that just makes the problem worse. Others have simply given up on multiplayer, or only play co-op, or worse, have simply given up on the game.

 

This simulator is too many time badly used by players themselve, IMO.

 

I think you are right.

Hopefully innovative server owners like CB and FvP will keep on refining their dynamic campaigns, I know for a fact that they want to steer the MP scene away from a simple airquake.

 

[Guest deleted@83466]

Look, there is almost no entry barrier to the game.  When a new plane is released, you’ll see people flying it on the MP servers within a half an hour.  Really don’t need to know very much to fly any plane here. You die?  Just respawn, hit E, and roar across the taxiways into the air.  A sim that tries to be so accessible to everyone is also prone to the behavior described by you all.  BTW, imo, the “Hartmanns” or “Seagulls” as described here, the ones actually trying to shoot enemies down and survive, don’t seem to me to be the reason for this.  They aren’t the ones turning it into gladiatorial arcade combat.  They aren’t the ones setting off in a suicide run, alone, against the enemy air defenses, or flying straight to the enemy airfield for some quick combat.  When they ask for escort, they are really asking just to be bait. I happen to like stats.

 

If one were to impose even a slight delay-on-death to respawn, it might discriminate against the arcade gamers, but it might reduce the server population even further still.  
 

DCS can sometimes suffer from the exact opposite problem:  guys that want to have a 2 hour mission briefing before taking off, and that is boring too.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Theres always a place for TDM, but some of these other servers are trying for something beyond TDM, and are trying to create a war front experience. They end up investing alot of time and talent in creating really interesting systems and objectives, but honestly alot of the time it just feels like the objectives are just there to trick people into becoming easy targets for campers. So it's just disappointing for people who want something different, when every server just feels like TDM plus a few people tricked into playing objectives. I blame the stats though, not the servers.

[Guest deleted@83466]

I partially agree.  In Rise of Flight you had some servers, that in the interests of encouraging more bomber pilots, heavily weighted the stats towards ground targets.  So, you would get these clowns in there that would wait until everybody was gone and they’d go in there and spam trains, die, and do it all over again to earn their squadrons points for the month.

 

But I think that other metrics, like K/D, and virtual life accomplishments can actually be useful, and encourage people to fly with a little more discretion and realism.

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by SeaSerpent
Waited to weighted.

[Otto_bann]

8 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

... I happen to like stats...

 

 

Yes, like lung cancer patients who are still addicted to tobacco... Like this demonic disease, we (gamers) have to face reality and act on our side before it's too late.

I'm not saying we should stop dogfighting on all servers (I like DF, I play it almost every night). I'm just pointing out the obvious. Where and how it's done : it's too much and in the wrong place most of the time.

Maybe too many "fighter-stat-lovers" come to Cbox, the Finnish servers or similar, because they have no real alternative to Berloga, a pure but over-simplified DF server. But on servers that are clearly dedicated to ground attack (the briefings are clear), fighters are too important. I'm convinced of this.

 

The excess of fighters digs the grave of the multiplayer part of this sim and the statistics system feeds the problem even further.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Otto_bann

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

7 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

I partially agree.  In Rise of Flight you had some servers, that in the interests of encouraging more bomber pilots, heavily weighted the stats towards ground targets.  So, you would get these clowns in there that would wait until everybody was gone and they’d go in there and spam trains, die, and do it all over again to earn their squadrons points for the month.

 

But I think that other metrics, like K/D, and virtual life accomplishments can actually be useful, and encourage people to fly with a little more discretion and realism.

 

 

 

Yeah the same issue is in the ground kill stat too. All kills are equal, so you get the 3 am train bombing cheese. The stats need a weighting system ideally, that would factor in things like team populations, enemy players skill, the planes being flown, frontline damage, etc.  Otherwise I dont see an end to the camping, and 3 am train bombing metas any time soon.

[Charlo-VR]

3 am which time zone?

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I'm on EST, and all the servers are usually pretty dead then. I wasn't trying to be too literal by saying 3 am, just using that as a general time when most people are sleeping, and you can see 1 or a handful of people in tanks or fully loaded bombers curb stomping the map unopposed, which just isn't very engaging gameplay, but its rewarded very heavily.

[Guest deleted@83466]

But if you and your wingmen were to come in and shoot that guy down repeatedly, would he accuse you of being a stat whore?  Would you be a “camper” if you decided to cap the target that the guy has attacked on the last 5 sorties, for some guaranteed action on a slow night?  And if there were actually friendly fighters available to provide him escort, but instead decided to use him as nothing more than bait, can you blame them?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Low pop times are always going to lead to boring cheese gameplay, so theres really nothing else to do but the above or log off. I'd just log off.

 

Better to build around assuming a healthy population, because the games just always gonna suck when barely anyones on.

 

Theres a very tricky balance to pull off though on the servers. On one extreme you get everyone camping, the other extreme is one guy in a tank mouse clicking on buildings at 3 am. A good server experience is found in the sweet spot between the two with a good ratio of all playstyles. Right now the stats reward the two extremes the highest, and that encourages the same stale gameplay loops over and over. If the stats change, the playstyles will too. 

[Otto_bann]

I also believe that at least part of the solution can only be found with the support of mission designers and server owners.

 

Our problem is that only a small minority of us are technically, financially capable of sacrificing so much time to run a server with any degree of success on our simulator: to complexity must be added scarcity and willingness: a big challenge.

[357th_KW]

Why not just build a simple server that doesn't have any fighters available for players?  This would be really simple to make.  Hell, you could just download an existing mission from an existing server (though it might be polite to ask the server owner if they mind first), and then remove the fighters from the spawns and run the mission on your box.  That's a couple hours of work tops.

 

If you wanted to get more complex, you could include some AI fighters here and there for flavor for the bomber guys - just set them to a low AI level, with an OnDamaged function that would cause them to RTB if you hit them very hard with return fire.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Relax, no one's mentioned anything about having zero fighters. We've just been discussing how the stats favor certain playstyles over others. and how the variety of missions being flown can be increased by changing or removing stats.

[Guest deleted@83466]

1 hour ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

Relax, no one's mentioned anything about having zero fighters. We've just been discussing how the stats favor certain playstyles over others. and how the variety of missions being flown can be increased by changing or removing stats.

 

I’d love Zero fighters.  Maybe that’s part of the problem right there? ?

[Denum]

On 5/27/2023 at 12:22 PM, Otto_bann said:

I think that players are tired of logging on to any server whose briefing clearly and predominantly expresses ground attack missions, but where in the end they are faced with a very large majority of fighters who do nothing but hunt: all servers are now just some other Berloga servers, which I think is the only real server dedicated to hunting and only hunting. Briefings are not read most of the time, the majority take off to find a plane to shoot down as quickly as possible, that's all

 

 

That's kinda my train of thought as of late. I look at my kit, think "gee multiplayer might be fun" then go "oh.. yeah".

 

Then I fire up World of Warships.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Oh well…I never wanted to be one of those poor, sad bomber pilots anyway.

[Zooropa_Fly]

Speaking as a predominantly lone wolf 110 pilot, mostly on WoL - having gunners who can't hit a cow in the arse with a banjo is a big problem.

Whereas a couple of years ago I might have escaped a 1v1 encounter 30-40% of the time, nowadays I'm dead pretty much every time.

So with gunners who offer no protection, it's not surprising that some ground attack pilots are being put off.

[-LCC-FortisOne]

I've noticed a lot less Russian players in the chat over the last Year and a half.

 

Just saying. 

[Otto_bann]

5 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

... Whereas a couple of years ago I might have escaped a 1v1 encounter 30-40% of the time, nowadays I'm dead pretty much every time. So with gunners who offer no protection, it's not surprising that some ground attack pilots are being put off.

You can add to this major problem the new devastating sci-fi ballistic of some fighters : all the more reason not to choose a slowest, heaviest and least maneuverable aircraft (which means choosing best fighters first and foregoing ground attack, once again...).

[SharpeXB]

On 5/28/2023 at 12:05 PM, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I blame the stat system, we're using the same scoreboard and stat site across all the servers

Really? Where’s this? Never seen that. 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

You can find the links here:

 

[SharpeXB]

20 minutes ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

You can find the links here:

 

Oh sure I’ve seen that. I thought he meant the game as a whole, not the individual servers. 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I guess I could have worded it clearer, but I meant the individual stat sites are based on the same system and encourage/discourage the same playstyles.

[SharpeXB]

10 hours ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I guess I could have worded it clearer, but I meant the individual stat sites are based on the same system and encourage/discourage the same playstyles.

I think play-styles are just human nature and a product of the game mechanics, not stats. 
If anything the dynamic war campaign servers like Combat Box reward players for doing ground attack since it has some lasting effect in the game. If the mission reset every few hours you work just gets undone. 

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I have a more selfish view of human nature, where most would prioritize there own personal stats over campaign progress. I'm not trying to shame people for not wanting to be stat martyrs, human nature just is what it is. I just think it would lead to better gameplay if personal stats were tailored to basically socially engineer the player base into prioritizing the campaign in engaging ways, and to take the player base away from cheese and camping.