Lock-On's Current Multiplayer State

[X-man]

Maybe programming the server to post a message at a specific time...

"The Blue team has launched a cruise missile towards the Red Spawn!"

"A Red CSAR helicopter has been spotted near WP3"

and of course actually putting a few AI in there so the lonely pilot who investigates gets rewarded.

Id love to see this happen :thumbup:

[mvsgas]

thereminqblank, you bring a good point to. Language barrier, I think that is a big problem in lock on community. Not a bad thing but I have played with people form China, Poland, Ukraine, US, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, ect all at the same time. If we all got in a TS I know I would confuse most people, after all this years in the US, I still got a bad accent and horrible pronunciations in English and now in Spanish ( thank God for spell check) Hell I have learn the Cyrillic alphabet because of this game, but the only think I have learn in Cyrillic is:"Ya nie gavaru pa-rusky". and God knows I can pronouns it. That could be one of the reason for people playing the way they do.

[Frostie]

Any server with AWACS encourages people to fly solo and get great success from flying really low in the mountains while using the data-link to pick off targets. Which IMO creates an AirQuake.

[Aeroscout]

thereminqblank, you bring a good point to. Language barrier, I think that is a big problem in lock on community. Not a bad thing but I have played with people form China, Poland, Ukraine, US, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, ect all at the same time. If we all got in a TS I know I would confuse most people, after all this years in the US, I still got a bad accent and horrible pronunciations in English and now in Spanish ( thank God for spell check) Hell I have learn the Cyrillic alphabet because of this game, but the only think I have learn in Cyrillic is:"Ya nie gavaru pa-rusky". and God knows I can pronouns it. That could be one of the reason for people playing the way they do.

 

Very good point

 

It's not only language barrier though, but there are those who simply don't have a mic, or have a crappy one like me and have TS problems. And, there are also people (once again like me) who are quite shy and get very uncomfortable speaking to people directly. This obviously leads to solo flights.

 

One thing I've noticed is that these solo flights lead to the air quake. I don't know, but maybe a mission could be organized so that a group of 4 planes have one flight plan while another 4 planes have a different one in a different location. That way you don't have 60 thousand planes all firing missiles at one another in the same place. You could also match Fighter's flight plans with ground pounders' flight plans, encouraging cooperative play.

 

Any thing that will help prevent solo flights

[Boberro]

I agree with language barrier. I am also rather shy, and when I think what is correct form for sentences in English, what time use to this form maybe Past Simple or Past Continous or Past perfect Simple or which good time from 3 Future times oO to don't make any mistake. This is big barrier :|

[S77th-konkussion]

However- if you are in an english speaking TS channel, and you understand English better than you speak it, is this not better than being completely cut off from what's going on?

 

Same goes for people with hardware issues- although I must say- a pretty nice headset/ mic is between $15 and $50 here in the US. If you are truly unable to speak- you can at least listen in and improve your situation dramatically.

[cool_t]

:)

 

Flanking Maneuver. Someone thinking outside the box for a change.

Personal Objective. Usually to kill the AWACS. This is almost always a suicide mission.

 

 

Ya life gets boring, I need more of a chalenge rather than spitting 120s at the Red guy.

 

It would be nice to see some of the "Ace" pilots taking more of a risk and actualy land the Jet back to base after Killing A-50s.

 

Truly the same hit and run fire fights are good and all but thats old news.

 

I like to show up at the bad guy base and destroy S-300 sites with my cannons. Its a fun time also when you drag bandits one way then pull the old switch on them and kill the A-50.

 

:pilotfly:

[A.S]

Airquake Reason Nr:

 

1) .... score making...being someone...proofing it by numbers overcomes the art of flying in wise intelligent way. Any objective becomes meaningless...honestly who cares or CAN care in airquake bout that.

 

2) .... respawning over and over.....what would happen if after u got shot down...and you are OUT.... at least for couple of minutes. The seriousity of that flight has no meaning at all sometimes.

 

3) .... game is very simple ...everyone can join...everyone can takeoff and shoot with no knowledge.....see falcon...there workload of whole mission is soo complex, that random online servers like ours even would not run that way.

..back in days i had once a idea to create one passworded server for squads...all with chance to meet in one com......kinda FO carrier server for LO....well wiered idea ..but has something in it...

 

4) ... and AWACS (realistic my a.....) whenever i see a AWACS server i see planes heading everythin what blinks up in MFD like flies around light....and that as low at possible....

 

5) ... number of Slots....sometimes less is more... ..and MISSIONS sometimes the same...instead of wise made...overloaded..

 

6) ... AND THATS the most important point: .. i guess everyone expierenced playing ego-shooters on online servers....OR/AND in squadmatches.... i think i dont have to ask what was really really more exciting and more tactical advanced....... dont fear setting up squadmatches cuz fo virtual egos...and repution crap .... simple as that.

 

we all hate to loose...definitly ...but we all love to fight. :smilewink:

[RvEYoda]

people tend to think lockon is a game about driving hovercraft, hovercraft

with big respawn machines mounted on each side - Wroom wroom!

 

These hovercraft also have the ability to bend spacetime and avoid

any incoming threat by making them spin around in the void ^^

[golfsierra2]

I agree with language barrier. I am also rather shy, and when I think what is correct form for sentences in English, what time use to this form maybe Past Simple or Past Continous or Past perfect Simple or which good time from 3 Future times oO to don't make any mistake. This is big barrier :|

 

You don't need to talk in sentences, use Brevities instead. That's what they were invented for...

Long babbling will only fill up your comms and deny your mates from calling out important bandit info, so keep it short.

[Grimes]

Any server with AWACS encourages people to fly solo and get great success from flying really low in the mountains while using the data-link to pick off targets. Which IMO creates an AirQuake.

 

I wouldn't agree 100% with that statement. The distance away from you of the aircraft detected by the AWACS has to be the ruling factor in this. I'd hope that a player doesn't react the same way when told there is an enemy 20 km away or 200 km away. There isn't any way of telling whether or not its true sadly.

 

 

3) .... game is very simple ...everyone can join...everyone can takeoff and shoot with no knowledge.....see falcon...there workload of whole mission is soo complex, that random online servers like ours even would not run that way.

 

we all hate to loose...definitly ...but we all love to fight.

 

Well put, I've never played Falcon, in what way is it different from Lockon?

 

 

Ya life gets boring, I need more of a chalenge rather than spitting 120s at the Red guy.

 

That reason was partially brought up by you, whom I've found myself in a fight with on a few occasions going after that thing.

 

 

Keep up the great thoughts guys, I've seen lots of good replys to this.

[Pilotasso]

Question - how do other combat flight sims fare in this regard? Is it really a Lock On reality or a genre reality?

 

 

Lockon reality. For example in Falcon 4 wich is a study SIM for a multirole aircraft has a community wich is much more purist in how they do things. They would call us crazy to fight SA-10's with cluster bombs on flankers. Im not puting down any communtity just that both SIM's have different kind of audiences.

 

REd tiger has put it better than me, I share his vision.

I can speak for Falcon here, a little at least, and add to what mvsgas shared. I've never played Falcon MP but I have seen plenty of discussion about it. I've seen some people who play MP like you find in Lock On -- head to head. IIRC there's some on-going thing out there that people participate in that involves 4 on 4 air to air combat. The big challenge is to properly sort bandits and execute an organized attack.

 

The other and more common thing I hear about is people flying the campaign co-op vs the AI. I think the study-sim aspect of Falcon lends its self much better to co-op than it does head to head. The environment of the campaign also lends itself to very organized and well-planned play. People taking several hours for one mission, from the briefing to landing back at the airbase, is not unheard of. Some squadrons take it to the nth degree and use proper brevity code, overhead breaks, formation landing, etc. The AI in Falcon is still ultimately AI, but the missions you fly can be very, very difficult. There's absolutely nothing easy about flying an OCA mission on the harder difficulties in a "2010" campaign. It can be near suicidal, in fact.

 

My two cents on MP is that what Grimes described is one of the many reasons I don't play flight sims multiplayer. Understand, I don't really play anything multiplayer anymore (I play a MMORPG, but I primarily play that solo or with my wife), but if I did it wouldn't be a flight sim. If I wanted head to head MP kicks, a flight sim would be the last place I would look. First of all, Its simply not what I'm looking to get out of it. I don't want to associate that hobby with ANYTHING stressful or competitive. Second of all, as Grimes described with TF2, there are so many games that are designed from the ground up as MP games. I'd rather play something like TF or even an actual Quake game for MP over a flight simulator!

 

Again, What Is aid is not absolutist, i.e. I dont say everybody play like in an airqauke, nor did I mention any servers.

[RvEYoda]

Hey pilotasso you can kill Sa-10 in falcon with guns....with....some effort ;)

check here

 

I don't agree with Red about flightsims not being for competition.

Everyone plays for his own reasons, and most activities suit both competition

and single player/practice, whatever is your taste. I find that competing in

flightsims is very interesting, since you must do it on so very many levels.

 

The depth of competition in a realistic combat flightsim is so much greater

than the average shooter. You are competing on so many more levels, at least

that's how I feel :)

[cool_t]

On the flip-side. It promotes a few good pilots to plan a way to take out that awacs.

 

Right on dude!

 

:thumbup:

[159th_Viper]

Airquake Reason Nr:

 

1) .... score making...being someone...proofing it by numbers..........

 

Agree 110% - Personally cannot see the justification behind that - but then again, that's just me.........

[169th_Case]

Just a wild idea, but if there were a way to give individual pilots certain goals to achieve, for which they would receive points if they succeeded, it might draw people away from airquake.

 

For example, the first pilot that joins a server is tasked with destroying a simple ground target. The second pilot that joins the server is tasked with flying a CAP in the vicinity of the ground target. The third pilot that joins is tasked with flying a fightersweep aiding the 3rd pilot, etcetera.

 

Though a lot of work, the mp_log combined with the tacview should contain the information to check if a pilot achieved his goal. No, or much less points would be given if they would just go off and do airquake.

 

Giving individual pilots goals when they are in the server is probably impossible, but I can imagine that before pilots log in to the game server, they log in to a website which provides them with their mission orders and goal. If that website is connected to a SQL database that has uptodate information about the status of the mission, this might work.

 

As I said, just a wild idea :music_whistling:

 

Case

[Frostie]

The simplest way to move away from an AirQuake is to not give solo pilots the benefits they crave eg. AWACS, which will then force them to work together or die.

[RvEYoda]

Well, make the deaths count more than the kills perhaps

 

Score = Kills/Deaths^2 - someStatisticalUncertainty(kills)

[Grimes]

I can see both sides of the argument with concern to AWACS and EWR.

 

The Pros

+Alerts you of sneaky players (flying with radar off)

+Increases Situational Awareness

+Itself is a high value target

 

The Cons

-Encourages low flight

-Encourages players to fly right at each other

-Doesn't force teamwork

 

and 2 minor complaints

-wont shut up :D

-F15 lacks datalink, thus is at a greater disadvantage compared to Migs and Su

 

There is no clear cut answer on this one. My philosophy is to build a mission where awacs is present but not all that impossible to achieve. The 169th and 104th missions are different than this, since they run for 12+ hours at a time and (I think) have a fresh awacs take off when the other runs out of gas. Whereas I'm thinking along the gameplay effects of 3 hour mission rotations.

[GGTharos]

The missing datalink isn't as big a problem as the missing ability for the AWACS to give you a picture, and the lack of brains for it to properly go defensive when necessary.

[104th_Crunch]

I think the major prohibitive factor in MP Lockon is that there are no "trigger events" that can trigger something to happen after something else occurs. There is no goal scenario that can be set that if one side achieves the round/battle will end. Currently mission goals are set in the briefing but there is nothing forcing you to help achieve those goals.

 

I have no idea how the following could actually be implemented but perhaps there could be missions that actually end when set goals are achieved. Once one side wins, the mission rotates to a new map with a new battle and new goal(s) or the mission resets. The point is there has to be a way for the match to end as result of one side achieving a goal(s) and not because of a time limit. That would get people playing as part of the team in a hurry. Having a round end and your team losing will make you want to contribute to your team all the more.

 

Of course the above is geared more towards getting the Lonewolves to do some planning. By having a few friends and joining an open mission server like the 169th or 104th you can always co-ordinate an attack.

 

Here's another idea that rips off the Battlefield games. Again, no idea how it could actually be implemented. In fact I’m sure it’s impossible but might give someone some ideas.

 

-You could make airfields objectives

-Each air base is Red or Blue

-Once an Airbases' defensive systems are destroyed (SAMS, etc) by the opposing team, the base is now under that opposing team’s control. This team can now spawn at the captured airbase and they receive new defensive systems. The team that lost the airbase is forced to spawn at their next reserved airbase.

- A "Round/Battle" ends when all set airbases are under one teams control

-This gives a common goal for everyone and different A2A and A2G roles for everyone

[S77th-konkussion]

Any server with AWACS encourages people to fly solo and get great success from flying really low in the mountains while using the data-link to pick off targets. Which IMO creates an AirQuake.

 

I don't think this is totally wrong, but IMO there is no single item that encourages that "I fly for stats" attitude than the existence of server messages.

 

This is why you have people hanging out -far away from the front- picking off landing pilots, etc

 

This is -one of- the reasons certain people fill the air with maddog missiles as a RULE- instead of as a defensive measure, or within another legit circumstance.

 

I think the negative connotations surrounding "Airquake" is mostly B.S. You cannot simply leave a server up and expect that you will always have the proper ratio of ground & air. For those of you that are uncomfortable flying air to air, and think that somehow you've been singled out as a victim of things you can't control? Get over yourself.

 

1. There are servers that have A2G platforms only.

 

2. If you enter a server that has say 6 enemy pilots- all in fighters, and your side is

a. not in communication or flying as a team in any way

b. flying mainly A2G (outnumbered)

 

Common sense should kick right about................. now. "hmm my platform of choice is a literal deathtrap here at this time. I fly it at my own risk. "

 

Don't complain. It was your choice.You could become more proficient on other planes if you wanted to. You could be in a squad, join as a team (even if it's only 2 or 3 of you) and accomplish a lot more.

 

 

In other words- Admins & mission makers.

 

NOTICE:

 

You cannot make everyone happy all the time. There will ALWAYS be complainers about something. Personally- I hate it when people maddog 100% of the time. I hate server messages. I hate it when people land against traffic, sit on the runway, and generally fly as though NO ONE else is even there. But I deal with it. I cuss & fume to myself- but I deal with it. MANY people who moan non-stop about "airquake" are often hiding behind their fear of head to head competition anyway. "Airquake" is a normal, natural circumstance that is the result of the limitations of the product, and the choices of the individuals that fly it. There are ways to reduce it- to change the focus of the battle, but that is up to the people in there. You cannot have a large combo map, a wide selection of planes, an assortment of people with different attitudes & priorities ,and not have some of it.

 

ahhhh-HOO -ah.

 

TRY to have a nice flight, people.

 

LOMAC's problems PISS me off as much as anyone else. I'm no different. But the online experience is what you make of it. I get tired of airquake myself. So- I fly the T-frog somewhere else. And vice versa. There IS plenty of baseline choice available to everyone. (the different servers) The rest is up to you & me.

[S77th-GOYA]

I can't help but think back to the "olden days" when the S77th server was operational and by far the most popular server on HL. There were no stats and there was rarely an AWACS/EWR. A TS server was available but rarely used by anyone other than S77th. Those of us in the S77th were almost entirely in fighters and to the opposition it may have appeared to be "airquake". But believe me, there was a great deal of coordination and teamwork going on to acheive the goal of air superiority. From wing level up to the overall squadron level. So I guess the bottom line is that it is going to be what you make of it. Shooting down other aircraft is what air superiority fighters do. Calling it airquake because a bomber isn't coming in behind you is often times a misnomer.

[X-man]

Shooting down other aircraft is what air superiority fighters do. Calling it airquake because a bomber isn't coming in behind you is often times a misnomer.

Can we define Airquake, so that we're all on the same page here?!? :music_whistling: Im with GOYA here, any A2A battle with no other objective is not necesseraly an Airquake...

[Grimes]

Can we define Airquake, so that we're all on the same page here?!? :music_whistling: Im with GOYA here, any A2A battle with no other objective is not necesseraly an Airquake...

 

I was wondering when this point was going to be made :)

 

There is no clear cut way, in my mind, to look at something and say, "hey look, that is airquake." I also think we can't sit at a round table and lay down parameters to define airquake. Its just not feasible. There are just to many factors to associate with it.

 

To me, its more of a state of mind between the players in a given server than anything else. The careless attitude one takes toward their aircraft and the need to get a kill. It can be a lack of tactical flying, with or without teamwork and communication with my fellow wingmen. There doesn't need to be an objective to make something not airquake, but it certainly helps. I can be a matter of semantics.

 

"I'm going to fly to way-point one and shoot enemies down"

"I'm going to provide CAP over waypoint one."

 

They both say the same things, but do they both mean the same things?

 

On the flip-side there are situations I can look at where I believe the game has turned to airquake. When an enemy has pushed to and is within 20 mi of my spawning base. In other words, if I can shoot at people and get shot down by people within 5 minutes of taking off, I call that airquake.

 

I think its completely possible for two different players to be in a single server where one believes he is in an airquake battle, and the other believes they are in a highly skillful and tactical fight.