Why and how the current meta game is broken - examples

[Curse]

Since the introduction of games things can and will break the meta game. Currently there are at least two massive flaws in the AirwaySim meta game - they are exploited widely and as far as possible and break the game aside them.


1) Heathrow
a) Heathrow has absolutely unrealistic high demand.
b) 1/3 of this already unrealistic high demand is premium.

Result: Nearly everybody flies at gameworld start at first to Heathrow.
Example from GW#3: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Slots/EGLL/



2) BAC 1-11
a) Medium aircraft were already strong and got buffed massively a few weeks ago (prior GW#4).
b) BAC 1-11 therefor is the only and best choice for _EVERY_ airline that operates from 0nm up to 1500nm. Direct competition like DC-9 (large aircraft, not noticably more pax, not nociably more range, more expensive to purchase) and even 737 is eaten away. BAC also crushes props like NAMC and F-27 on (ultra) shorthaul.
c) With the new basing system and the massive difference between medium and large aircraft allowed bases this already extremely huge gap between BAC 1-11 and everything else will further increase.

Result: This basically breaks the whole game from release of the BAC 1-11 up to the 90s where they finally get outphased and replaced by other aircraft.
Example: GW#3.




Solutions:
1) Reduce demand out of Heathrow noticably. Decrease the pervert amount of premium demand.
2) Make BAC 1-11 a large aircraft.

[Jona L.]

Solutions:
1) Reduce demand out of Heathrow noticably. Decrease the pervert amount of premium demand..

*perverse

Otherwise fully agreeing.

[Sami]

I do not basically agree on those statements, and this whole thread seems to be just based on your assumptions of the future. So I'll just answer quickly, but most certainly won't "debate" this at all.

The LHR demand. You are just saying that it's "completely unrealistic" and so on, but you aren't basing it to anything. So it's just your opinion. And the LHR airport competitiveness is absolutely nothing new, it's been like that always, and I won't be spending much energy on worrying a single airport, currently - as there are plans for the future. After all it's calculated 100% in the same way as all other airports.

The fleet groups size classes are based on the average size of all aircraft of that fleet group. Smallest BAC has 80 seats, largest 119. DC-9 is between 86-139, and Fokker 70/100 (medium too) has 85-122 seats. 737 (3-500) is between 132-189. So DC-9 is on the borderline there clearly - but there, like always, a line has to go somewhere - and DC-9 is for example clearly in the large group thanks to it's relations to MD-80 series too. But bumping BAC there would mean that a whole heap of others would go there too, and it will not work. But basically it seems that you're just making a huge fuss of a single aircraft type here and trying to compare for example the BAC to 737 which are in totally different size levels. And most of all, it's all complete guesswork to make such assumptions when nobody has yet even formed a single base yet under the new rules. We'll see how the new base rules work in the long run - so far there is absolutely zero experience of it in the real game scenarios so all this is premature.

(So, won't be commenting any further to this fully non-factual "rant", sorry.)



edit/type-o'ous

[JumboShrimp]

Re: LHR

As far as LHR Demand, there will be a new demand system as the next major level of enhancement, so I am not sure it is worthwhile to mess with the level of demand at this particular airport.

From playability, LHR is always a source of conflict.  The easiest way to fix it is to just give LHR the level of slots of major US airports (ORD, ATL). 

I think that will be the last we will hear of LHR.  When was the last time you heard people complaining about ORD, ATL slots?  Long time ago, AFAIK.  That's because these airports have enough slots to serve their demand.  LHR does not.

So I would urge Sami to just increase the slots at LHR for sake of playability until the new demand system is in place.  As is, LHR has been #1 reason for Sami to take punitive administrative actions.  I would just remove this source of conflict with few extra slots at LHR...

re: BAC 1-11

I am not that familiar with the earlier aircraft, but the problem of the entire world being flooded by BAC 1-11 will not happen, because the production line can produce only so many.  Similar to A330/340 line.  It is really good during its time frame, but players trade off availability of other fleet types vs. A330

[LemonButt]

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,51378.msg302802.html#msg302802

[Curse]

You guys seem to miss something very important:

This was no "hypothetical in theory could happen thing", it's something that happened already. It was no coincidence I gave examples and evidence in my first post.



@ sami

1) Of course it is like it was. That doesn't make things better. It's also no assumption, the number of flights (and therefor seats offered) are easily visibile ourdays. Jona and I took the time to compare several of the biggest routes ingame via real life and some proportions (that are important) simply don't work, so is for example the Los Angeles - New York City demand noticably lower than in real life.

Example?
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/EGLL/MMMX/ (GW#3)
The demand is already lowered by 50% or so due to the new gameworld start. It will grow with about 5% each year and how big the route will be in 2014? 2000 demand daily, 1/3 of them premium?

And in real life? According to google flights and other sites there's a single daily flight: British Airways 243, 747-400
I'm no aircraft expert like you guys, but I'm sure British Airways has no 744 in service that can seat so many people. If there's more demand on the route than offered? I don't know exactly, but flights for tomorrow can be booked and BA isn't really known for their full aircraft...


Don't get me wrong, I don't attack the game, I just point out two flaws.



In GW#3 nearly everything went like this:
- Get longhaul aircraft, basically irrelevant which one.
- Fly to Heathrow.

Out of Los Angeles five airlines did this, one of them is now inactive, the other four have absolutely outplayed the airlines that did not start with this "exploiting" strategy. Same is for most other airports.


2) I am sure it is all based on some facts that are fitting the aircraft size and weight in real life. But AirwaySim differes a bit: The number of staff is calculated differently.

If I fly and schedule a DC-9-10 and a BAC 1-11 500 exactly the same - do they need the same amount of staff? No. Do I pay the same for the staff? No.


At the moment the DC-9 doesn't even offer a higher range than the BAC 1-11 500. meiru made a thread about that and possible DC-9 variants with higher range, but right at the moment there is _no reason_ not to use the BAC 1-11 over the DC-9. And 737-200Adv is only then better, if you need the range between ~1650nm and ~2100nm, so basically nowhere important in Europe, Japan/Asia or 99,9% of the important US airports.

Is this realistic? I don't know and as a player I care not too much. What I saw in GW#4 was a giant rush to the BAC 1-11 and the irrelevancy of most other types. Today I received another two Skype-Messages about this: One looks for more BACs, the other one whines because nobody purchases 737-200Adv from the used market.



Do the 737-100, 737-200 and 737-200Adv really have a "totally" different size?
The 737-200Adv seats about 20 pax more than the BAC 1-11 500. That's 1/5.
However, it weights less (1/4 up to 1/5), it consumes less fuel (1/3 up to 1/4) and it requires medium pilots that are
a) cheaper to pay
b) you need less pilots/staff to maintain a medium aircraft
and on top you get a frequency bonus for flying more often to the same destination if you wish so.
Oh yes, the production is faster because it's just a medium aircraft.


You are right, sami, we haven't seen the basing system in action yet. But is there a reason my scenario is unrealistic? GW#4 already showed the massive shift from 727 and 737 to BAC. Funny enough, many of the produced 737-200Adv were for the used market and now people can't sell them accordingly because it's flooded and only a dozen players need them in huge numbers.



@ Jumbo Shrimp

I am aware of the new demand system that might come some day. I thought I start a discussion about problems that currently exist and if the new demand system isn't introduced for the gameworld that comes next, will most probably a problem then, too.

I thought for a long time just giving LHR unlimited slots would fix the problem. Truth is: It does not. The huge amount of premium pax absolutely kills off (!) every other starting strategy. What is going to happen is the airlines, rich thanks to the LHR money, will wipe out the airlines that started with a different strategy.
This is no hypothetical thing, it's what happened and is going to happen in LAX, for example.

However, as a "no time to invest in this thing"-resolution a huge slot increase could actually help.



The BAC flood happened in GW#4. The production line was purchased out for nearly a decaded and is still very popular. It's a medium aircraft, so unlike other aircraft you can get the numbers you want to have fast.
Difference between A330/BAC is, they don't outrule _all other aircraft_ that are just around their sphere of influence. I even saw BAC wipe away owned F-27 airlines on shorthaul (three times I monitored this closely in GW#4).

[JumboShrimp]

I agree that the initial LH exploit completely unbalances the game in favor of those who use it (those that have ability to use it from their starting airport).

I made a suggestion about closing this exploit down here:

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,46457.0.html

If implemented, it would impose some CI requirement before International LH pax are allocated.  CI would be the proxy for the age of the airline, so pretty much no International LH pax in first 6 game months.  That means initial LH exploit is closed down.  And yeah, the premium pax, out of places like LHR would come even later, with higher CI (airline age) requirement.

So closing the LH exploit and adding some extra slots to LHR would go a long way addressing first part of your post, with minimal amount of work needed on Sami's part (to increase LHR slots) and relatively small amount of work to close down the LH exploit.

As far as BAC, you may have a good point as far as reclassifying it as "large"

[Curse]

Your solution only works with basically unlimited slots at EGLL, otherwise the there based airlines and maybe airlines around will send cheap spam aircraft to secure the slots, slotlocking the airport and then, when the airlines are old enough, replace it with premium pax aircraft - ideally the other airlines too far away then have no chance anymore to fly into LH.

(this problem that often occurs in Jet Age gameworlds like GW#4, where except a few airlines the Heathrow airlines have monopoly and will always have to places over the initial range of Constellations techstopped)

[JumboShrimp]

I am not saying unlimited slots, just +50% slots, to make LHR on par with ORD in slots.

As far as closing down the International LH exploit, without it, most airlines would not have cash to fly empty aircraft to LHR just to secure the slots.  And also, there would not be that much incentive to fly empty aircraft to LHR (empty because of not meeting CI requirement for International LH), since LHR would not be out of slots.

Part of the early rush to LHR (other than LHR being ideal target for the International LH exploit) is the expectations of players that LHR will be out of slots.  If that expectation is changed, the rush to LHR would slow down considerably.

[LemonButt]

1. With city-based demand, that demand will be spread across the entire London Airport system and LHR will actually end up being one of the less desirable airports because of the curfew/slot situation.

2. Terminals would solve all of this.  Exclusive slot pool for players means they can fly to LHR at their own detriment.  This means that if someone wants to fly LAX-LHR they can, but it will be at their own detriment as that same set of slots could be used to fly LAX-JFK which is likely more profitable.

[JumboShrimp]

Terminals is a nice idea, but it probably will take a bit of programming to fully implement.

As part of it, the general terminal would have functionality of growing (slots, gates) based on demand.  I think Sami mentioned that.

As a simplified implementation, I think just that feature, dynamic growth of slots based on demand (as opposed to current static growth) could be implemented quicker, and it would address most of the slot issues, including LHR.

[bdnascar3]

Terminals is a nice idea, but it probably will take a bit of programming to fully implement.

I love terminals and think it is a big part missing from making this great game even better. However the scheduling module would also have to be looked at as well to make it eaiser to route a aircraft in and out at the correct times.

[Hillians]

LHR is always an issue but if it's so easy to make profit in LHR, why is British Airways not making billions like players in this game...

I believe that the answer is related to ticket prices and taxes/fees imposed by governments which aren't accurately reflected in AWS in my opinion.

I've not got the exact data to compare 2014 game data but based on BW, a return ticket to JFK in 2007 in AWS from LHR to JKF is set at $1004 in Y (approx £600).
In reality in 2014, the price for a return Y ticket from LHR to JFK is set around £400 - £450 ..


Another big factor that's not included in the costs from LHR are the excessive airport passenger duty costs from the UK.

http://abta.com/news-and-views/policy-zone/more/air-passenger-duty

The taxes and fees account for a huge proportion of the costs of a ticket which leaves the airlines with little profits to cover the fuel / staff costs
from the link you can see that the tax currently on a 2000-4000 mile route is £69 which can be seen in the image attachment below based on a Virgin Atlantic flight fare.

[xyeahtony]

is this thread actually about LHR demand or the airlines based at LHR? Like Sami said, the demand at LHR is nothing new and has stayed the same since the beginning of AWS. Odd that complaints only spring up now all of the sudden. I honestly don't see what the big fuss is. Every game will have its flaws and ways to win, the key is to exploit every single one of those (legally of course). And at the start of GW3, basically every airline here opened a billion flights to LHR right off the bat, so clearly they had no problem with all the money they brought in.

The demand is very highly correlated with real life as well, London receives a lot of business travelers as opposed to cities like say, Los Angeles, where you have a lot of people visiting to go on holiday. Look at real life airlines like Emirates, American, Delta, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic that have a large passenger base out of LHR, they have all made massive investments into their business class products simply because there is a lot of business travelers out of LHR. Also, LHR-JFK is one of the most profitable airline routes in the world not due to leisure travel, but because of business travel. The sheer truth is you have a lot of rich people flying to LHR and out of LHR. If the game changes to city based demand, you would still see massive number of high revenue passengers traveling to LHR. Why is it that British Airways is the world's largest operator of the 747? They would have to have appropriate demand from their home base in order to support a fleet that massive.


As for the slot system at LHR, LHR is one of the most slot restricted airports in the world, real life and AWS. This is one of the things where AWS & real life reality go close hand in hand. LHR only has two runways and basically every major airline flying there in the world, and with no airport expansion options. It is in fact slot restricted airports like LHR that have spurred the development of uber large aircraft such as the A380 and 747. to give LHR the slot allowance of major US airports like say ORD would be highly unrealistic and unbalance the airport in the game. The only thing that balances LHR airlines is the slot problem. ORD btw has 7 active runways and thus can support a lot more departures/arrivals than LHR.


However i will say Jumboshrimp's suggestion of CI/RI to limit the $$/pax requirements of the routes out of LHR is an interesting avenue though to further balance out the advantage LHR airlines get.

[LemonButt]

LHR is always an issue but if it's so easy to make profit in LHR, why is British Airways not making billions like players in this game...

That is because BA is flying with 80% load factors at 1x real world demand.  Players in AWS are flying out of LHR with higher load factors and 2x+ real world demand.  There might be something to the argument that there is simply too much demand across the board INCLUDING LHR versus LHR being overweight.

If the new basing system remains in place, I'd propose that all demand for all airports gets dropped down to 1x real world demand versus a multiple.  Since you can have 10 bases x 30 aircraft instead of 3 bases x 100 aircraft the demand no longer needs to be consolidated, but rather it needs to be distributed.

[Hillians]

Also an interesting observation regarding this thread is how this suddenly has become an issue...
Is it a coincidence that ConnectAmerica is flying 174 (+85 on order) BAC111s in GW4 and is based in LHR in GW3 and suddenly it's an AWS game problem?
it's not much of a secret how much he is being targeted unsuccessfully in many gameworlds ..

If LHR and BAC's are so much of an issue, then why not adopt the same tactics and base in LHR?

AWS isn't broken and I think demands are ok as well, it's just the pricing element / and costs that need to be more accurate.

[Curse]

LHR is always an issue but if it's so easy to make profit in LHR, why is British Airways not making billions like players in this game...

Because demand in AWS and especially regarding Heathrow is unrealistic (in case of Heathrow: Way too high with too much premium).



About your conspiracy theory:
Less vodka might help.

[xyeahtony]

i think someone who flies out of London regularly (in paid business i might add) as opposed to someone who never flies anywhere is in a better position to judge the demand out of LHR.

http://www.heathrowairport.com/about-us/company-news-and-information/company-information/facts-and-figures

According to the London Heathrow airport authorities, 30% of their traffic is business travelers.

[Curse]

i think someone who flies out of London regularly (in paid business i might add) as opposed to someone who never flies anywhere is in a better position to judge the demand out of LHR.

I think someone who is able to use the internet accordingly as opposed to someone who just sits for an hour in the terminal once a year and counts pax is in a better position to judge demand out of LHR.

According to the London Heathrow airport authorities, 30% of their traffic is business travelers.

Marketing numbers. And that also ignores the fact demand out of Heathrow in AWS is far too high and therefor the offered premium demand is far too high, too. Again: A short flight check via
Google between a random airport and Heathrow shows this.
We have the year 2014. You must not actually sit in the terminals with a pen and a paper and count people anymore.

[Hillians]

haha, less vodka might help..

Nice to see you haven't lost your touch for trolling...  it must be tough wishing you could afford vodka on a welfare cheque, I guess it's all spent on AWS credits and Burger King meals. Oh I forgot, you claimed you have credits for life on AWS from Sami.

is it a coincidence also that 2 Elite members have set up base in GW2 vs the same airline in question and someone then posts a press release about it.
Our great leader isn't whinging about it (or reporting it as deliberate targetting), he's just happy to get the extra motivation to run an even more successful airline..
it's not a conspiracy theory, we all know there isn't much love lost between the 2 of you.

LHR has been like this for every single gameworld and will not get changed..
If you want the rewards of a the big profits, you need to put in the hard work.. and LHR is hard (team) work..
You can't expect the game dynamics to change just because things are at a disadvantage for your airline... play the game and use it to your advantage.

LHR is a heavy C/F orientated airport IRL so I think demands are accurate.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/5/20110905%20Market%20Context-FINAL.pdf

on slide 25 on this link you can see that 33% of demand is business related..
Given its from the Civil Aviation Authority, it's not a "marketing" number, its a fact.

I'll repeat that other elements are the issue why LHR is so profitable in AWS.