Market share is a symptom of the problem not the problem itself. The problem is your current ability to run thousands of flights out of every major airport. This is not realistic as the American regulators would never allow one company to control that much of the marketplace.
That is a count of 22 airports. And if we were to include the 7-8 sized hubs that you could make a decent hub out of the number is around double the above. Now you tell me how it is justified that one airline holding company hold over 50% of the slots in most of those airports above. It simply does not make sense. No administration in the US would allow a company to become essentially a monopoly. No way!
Now, from a game play perspective the most effective way to limit someone from growing into controlling ALL of the above airports is through a cost function. Every time someone wants to go over 500 flights in an airport they should have to designate it as a hub and pay a fee. For the first hub the fee would be completely nominal. But by the time you add your 10th hub it would be enormous ($100m + 10m / week in costs say) This cost would NOT STOP you from becoming a mega-airline it would just slow you down. (Instead of adding $100 million worth of planes after a large company fails you're suddenly facing $100 million in costs to first add the hub.
Now, is that an artificial way of essentially adding in a regulator? Well...yes. But unless AS wants to have to constantly monitor players it is a solution to the Monopoly Problem.
I don't even suggest that this is done on the existing servers. Simply doing something like this on future servers would keep those servers interesting for a much longer time. (IE...more players last longer & late game entry is easier)
Oh...and call these costs, "Political Lobbying & Political Action Committee Costs" going to the Feds and local governments and of course the media.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any restriction on the slot issue people facing in mega airport, but putting restrictions on slot in an airport, e.g. 50% max, is quite unrealistic. I don't have any data on slots, but as Delta in ATL, it's definitely taking more than 50% of the slots as it's the airline flying out of that airports with RJs, not the second place Southwest (or formerly AirTrans). so i would say it is might take any many slots as its market share in ATL. I will also doubt some players would survive with this restriction, especially if they choose not to use departure waves (funny things is i don't recall any airline in USA uses this kind of departure).
Another consideration is: in AS, if you don't take that slots, someone else would. At least on Kaitak, one the server you mention as one player taking 50% of the market, the issue of slot limitation is not because one player taking all slots in all mega airports; it's caused by multiple players fighting for slots in one airport. If you are just looking the airline you believe is a monopoly in the market, most of time he just takes 50% to 60% of slots. For a mage airports, 50% - 60% is not nearly close to blacking all slots.The issue you have here is demand in the airport is much more than slot available, and that's is not something you can fix in AS.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any restriction on the slot issue people facing in mega airport, but putting restrictions on slot in an airport, e.g. 50% max, is quite unrealistic. I don't have any data on slots, but as Delta in ATL, it's definitely taking more than 50% of the slots as it's the airline flying out of that airports with RJs, not the second place Southwest (or formerly AirTrans). so i would say it is might take any many slots as its market share in ATL. I will also doubt some players would survive with this restriction, especially if they choose not to use departure waves (funny things is i don't recall any airline in USA uses this kind of departure).
Another consideration is: in AS, if you don't take that slots, someone else would. At least on Kaitak, one the server you mention as one player taking 50% of the market, the issue of slot limitation is not because one player taking all slots in all mega airports; it's caused by multiple players fighting for slots in one airport. If you are just looking the airline you believe is a monopoly in the market, most of time he just takes 50% to 60% of slots. For a mage airports, 50% - 60% is not nearly close to blacking all slots.The issue you have here is demand in the airport is much more than slot available, and that's is not something you can fix in AS.
You will note that I never said anything about individual airports. The problem isn't one of a specific airport. It is quite realistic, as others have noted, for a single airline to have essentially a monopoly in a single airport. So that isn't the issue.
The issue is when someone decides to go from having a local/regional monopoly into a national monopoly. And yes, if you don't take the slots someone else will. But that is exactly the point.
Someone with more than 6000 airplanes in a single holding doesn't like the idea of limiting unrealistic growth. What a surprise...
That is not what I said. Go ahead and limit the amount of companies one can open, I have never said other wise. What I said, and of course you missed it, is that limiting the amount of flights "to an airport" is unrealistic. Reading is a skill, try to master it.....
Ufsatp: Have you considered your end game? At what point is enough, enough? And once you've cornered the market what else is left to do? Quit. That is all that you'll be left with. Or you can keep it running until AS shuts it down. (As a monument to your own glory I suppose) In my mind it is better to have a continuing interesting game that is always changing and offering new challenges. Or maybe that is just me?
My end game is no different if there were unrealistic limitations on slots, I will play the game until I get tired of it.
My end game is no different if there were unrealistic limitations on slots, I will play the game until I get tired of it.
I guess it is a question of what is more "realistic". Absolutely no check on growth is also unrealistic in markets that should have competition and would certainly have government interference if an airline became as big as some of the airlines in this game. I'd personally prefer a more realistic game that allows more players to play.
But perhaps this type of change should only be on new servers. I'm perfectly willing to concede that in order to get a more realistic airline simulation game that would actually be harder to grow big. As it is the best players all know the "secret to success" right now....and then just have to play the waiting game once you've gotten sufficiently big enough. A tougher environment for growth would actually (in my mind) be a more interesting game as you'd have to plan it out better and think long term about which airports you want to control. Maybe you don't move on that 7 bar airport that just opened up in the hopes of gaining something better later? Or perhaps you do want it now but once a better airport opens up you move your operations over the course of a few days as controlling both would be more expensive than the smaller airport is worth?
Wouldn't that make for a more interesting game? Actually having to make strategic choices instead of just playing spam-a-lot.
Well, a lot of the players say these suggestions (a few are mentioned in this thread) are not good nor feasible, but are not trying to add solutions nor maybe add solutions based on current proposals.
I was never talking about limiting market share (funny how people don't read...), but about limiting slots to promote competition. And don't talk always talk about ATL! Every anti-trust commission worldwide tries to limit monopolies, why shouldn't there be a mechanism in the game? Because competition is the interesting part of this game. So what are other solutions?
Adding costs to hub is no good solution in my eyes, because money is not an issue here in AS, as all the big airlines have tons of it (because of the high demand and their market position). And then we would have to discuss, what a 'hub' effectively is (based on the amount of departures? or based on capacity?), which can be quite complex.
@highscore: Based on a statement earlier in this thred, do you really believe that players report other airlines even though they can easily see those airlines don't use their maximum slots just to keep the AS team busy? I'm not with you on this...
Well, a lot of the players say these suggestions (a few are mentioned in this thread) are not good nor feasible, but are not trying to add solutions nor maybe add solutions based on current proposals.
There have been other suggestions in this thread! What about this one:
In theory, since one of the stated goals of the new class system is (effectively) to nuke the tendency to run low-density aircraft everywhere, slot congestion ought to be less of an issue once it's implemented (which is not to say no issue, and assuming it works out - but still). Certainly there's the potential for it to be possible to fill larger aircraft on less frequencies effectively where currently it isn't an option. Not knowing or having seen the exact details of how it'll shape out, though, it does seem a bit strange to be launching massive rants about it already...
Of course we don't know yet if the new booking system works out as intended. But listening to the latest video, the new system won't favor frequency over capacity any more and will tackle the current killer strategy, thus easing the slot congestion and boosting competition.
There have been other suggestions in this thread! What about this one:
Of course we don't know yet if the new booking system works out as intended. But listening to the latest video, the new system won't favor frequency over capacity any more and will tackle the current killer strategy, thus easing the slot congestion and boosting competition.
So wait and see, is my proposal.
Pray tell how this will help on servers like Nicosia where the lead player has over 85% of the US market locked down. And a serious presence in every city.
But hey...if we want a glorified Monopoly simulator...well then. Congrats!
Pray tell how this will help on servers like Nicosia where the lead player has over 85% of the US market locked down. And a serious presence in every city.
But hey...if we want a glorified Monopoly simulator...well then. Congrats!
Because:
a) - if the new thing works according to the stated intentions for it, I can potentially be way more competitive as a new entrant, given restricted infrastructure, than I am now;
b ) - if the new thing works according to etc, trying to dump aircraft on every frequency such that noone else can make anything of it is liable to be way more expensive than it is now (because most of them, per a), would be running empty, or at least more so than they are now);
n.b. also c) - if [etc] then there's certainly the potential for certain airlines to build themselves unassailable market share, actually to a greater extent than is the case right now - but again, per a) it's very questionable whether slot limits will actually be an effective way of combating that, or even relevant at all.
But - we don't know. All we have to go on right now are broad outlines. There's no point bigging up rule or system or whatever changes built around the system as it stands, because by the time anyone's in a position to benefit from them we should be staring a different landscape in the face, and then who knows. Wait until we have a usable example of Demand 2.0 or whatever to test, then get mad about whatever if it's sensible to - don't lose your shit about it now, because you're basically just yelling at clouds.
Anyway, if you really wanted to promote effective competition under the system as it stands right now then you'd want to do something like reserve a proportion of used aircraft for new entrants, or scale their starting cash according to the size of the market they're entering or something like that - really the difficulty for new entrants in constrained environments is gaining critical mass, and you need a lot of seats to put bodies in for that.
Well, a lot of the players say these suggestions (a few are mentioned in this thread) are not good nor feasible, but are not trying to add solutions nor maybe add solutions based on current proposals.
I was never talking about limiting market share (funny how people don't read...), but about limiting slots to promote competition. And don't talk always talk about ATL! Every anti-trust commission worldwide tries to limit monopolies, why shouldn't there be a mechanism in the game? Because competition is the interesting part of this game. So what are other solutions?
Adding costs to hub is no good solution in my eyes, because money is not an issue here in AS, as all the big airlines have tons of it (because of the high demand and their market position). And then we would have to discuss, what a 'hub' effectively is (based on the amount of departures? or based on capacity?), which can be quite complex.
@highscore: Based on a statement earlier in this thred, do you really believe that players report other airlines even though they can easily see those airlines don't use their maximum slots just to keep the AS team busy? I'm not with you on this...
Yes, they will report. Pretty sure.
As long as you have no technical solution in place, this limitation (btw: what is the difference between market shares and slots?) will not be followed.
I hope that the booking classes will work and will also be implemented on old servers. It might be a huge challenge but it could / would also give many options within the game. Not sure how much and how it would affect old companies yet.
As long as you have no technical solution in place, this limitation (btw: what is the difference between market shares and slots?) will not be followed.
I hope that the booking classes will work and will also be implemented on old servers. It might be a huge challenge but it could / would also give many options within the game. Not sure how much and how it would affect old companies yet.
Point #1: For the definition of this thread let's call market share a companies overall % within a country. Slots is dealing with airport specific. Every single game has airports with 80%+ dominance within an airport which in and of itself I do not see as a problem. On the other hand when you see a server like Nicosia has an 85% dominant US carrier....well...something is wrong with the game to allow that.
Point #2: My gut feeling is that the new booking classes with have great effect on newer servers for a time. But a company that has 85% of the slots locked down in a major airport (and maybe 5% free slots say) will feel little pain for the simple reason that there just isn't enough room to take very much market share. And a company that has pretty much all the major domestic airports locked down will feel no pain at all. So you might be able to build a small little airline that takes a little bit of market share that to the mega-airline is just a rounding error. Being able to build a Southwest (point to point) and not a hub and spoke based airline would be a big deal. So I hold out hope that it may help at the margins.
In the end, the best players running the best airlines will adjust to any model thrown at them and just keep rolling.
Then you and voeni have different positions. That's why I was asking if voeni meant slots (which he meant) or market share.
I have to agree on your second point. Unfortunately. Still I hope that there might be some players who will turn their airlines into something different with the booking classes. I will.
Even if the new booking class system is not going to solve the problem, it'd still be better to watch its launch before deciding on any further action, as any action proposed pre launch could either be rendered useless or being too impacting to regular player with the implementation of the new system.
Adding costs to hub is no good solution in my eyes, because money is not an issue here in AS, as all the big airlines have tons of it (because of the high demand and their market position). And then we would have to discuss, what a 'hub' effectively is (based on the amount of departures? or based on capacity?), which can be quite complex.
If you had additional costs to pay based on how many airports were effectively serving as hubs you could in theory greatly reduce the free cash flow that our companies currently have right now. Under my concept, you could grow big, but each successive hub would reduce your margins. (Thus reducing your free cash flow) At some point growing into that extra hub would actually cost you more than you would make. As to what makes a hub it should be based on the # of flights a week. To add that 500th or 1,000th flight you'd have to pay the man. The games main limitation to date are slots...so ultimately slots should be the deciding factor.
I am interested to see what happens to Quimby with the double slots. I'm not sure that six months will be enough time to really get the feel for any differences it will make in the long term.
Ok I just don’t understand why people that can’t be successful always wine about everything… of course it’s hard when A player has monopoly and stuff today on Riem I have almost one… but I had to fight my way and it wasn’t easy I took me 2 years to be a leading airline… what people doesn’t understand is that AS is hard work… and make the right strategy I spent lots of time reading forum and liquidating till my plan work… maybe the problem isn’t in the game… and it’s in the players that would like to everything as they please… yeah After 2 years work I sure do like to gain some profit and put other goals in my airline… I worked for it and I paid for it… so for me the measures in slot blocking and the passengers type will help a lot… the rest of the crying will always be there because players don’t like to play em some opportunities countries the want to play in the big markets and yeah it’s almost impossible to play there… well bottom line that’s it… and I personally think that a good strategy and some know how make the line of work successful anywhere… just don’t think you will get 500mi week in 2 weeks because you won’t!
Ok I just don't understand why people that can't be successful always wine about everything... of course it's hard when A player has monopoly and stuff today on Riem I have almost one.. but I had to fight my way and it wasn't easy I took me 2 years to be a leading airline... what people doesn't understand is that AS is hard work.. and make the right strategy I spent lots of time reading forum and liquidating till my plan work... maybe the problem isn't in the game.. and it's in the players that would like to everything as they please... yeah After 2 years work I sure do like to gain some profit and put other goals in my airline.. I worked for it and I paid for it... so for me the measures in slot blocking and the passengers type will help a lot... the rest of the crying will always be there because players don't like to play em some opportunities countries the want to play in the big markets and yeah it's almost impossible to play there... well bottom line that's it.. and I personally think that a good strategy and some know how make the line of work successful anywhere.. just don't think you will get 500mi week in 2 weeks because you won't!
Best Regards
I do get it. I too have spent many long hours building my Canadian airline on Devau And it also was hard work until my 2 biggest competitors dropped out over the course of six months. Suddenly I went from #3 to #1 overnight. And I grew into those markets over the course of about 2 weeks to a month. But now you and I know that the game is "easy" and we both have it essentially on autopilot within our respective countries. The only thing left to do there is buy planes and terminals and eventually branch out into the unrestricted marketplaces. (Not to mention previous airlines that I built as well. So I get the game)
My "proposed solution" probably would have little effect on a market like Brazil or Canada anyway. Truly it would only matter in the very biggest markets where realistically governments would never let one company control as much market share that some do now. Growth would only get "hard" once you were trying to control more than 8 to 10 "hubs". Canada realistically only has 7ish markets worth having that kind of presence and Brazil has a similar number.