AirlineSim is a great game, but let's face it. With every new feature that is introduced and that makes the game more realistic too, it becomes more difficult for new players to get "into it" and survive. I think even now, it is quite a challenge to establish yourself in any world, unless you are an expert and know exactly what to do. Therefore I recently had this idea:
To attract (or at least not discourage immediately) new players, I think it would be nice to have a difficulty level to choose from. Easy, Intermediate, Challenging, Advanced.
To make it easy, I could imagine players get a fixed boost on their flight ratings (ORS + x). X depends on the difficulty level (Easy has the highest X, Advanced = 0).
To avoid everybody goes for the Easy level, the player would be limited to a fleet (on Holding level) of 10 aircraft. If he gets past that, he automatically steps one level up to the next fleet threshold. Or he specifically has to change his level, before he can get more aircraft (possibly the automatic change is easier to program). To further give advanced players a small advantage, the ORS rating with a boost should be capped at slightly below the maximum.
It would provide a big advantage for new players and give them time to learn all the tricks and challenges in a protected mode, while avoiding that he’s expanding too much on easy level. It would kind of ensure that new players get full(er) aircraft even if they don’t know all the tricks.
The user could even “test” how well his strategy works, by selecting a different level before getting more aircraft and see if he still gets bookings etc.
The exact levels of fleet size and boost values would have to be determined. Look at the values above as a discussion basis. I think the concept could be implemented without having to change too much in the underlying code. It needs a small function to add the boost when instancing the flights, and a batch query once every now and then to check the fleet size and adjust the difficulty level. That could happen once or maybe twice a day per airline.
The idea is great for new players but I can't see any realism in it. In the real world the bigger the carrier is, the bigger is the brand recognition, which in turn brings more passengers so small carriers don't have the same brand recognition as larger carrier. For example when I regularly flew Norwegian 10 years ago very few of my friends knew what it was, my answer was "some small domestic carrier in Norway". Nowadays they are a brand recognised throughout the world which in turns makes more people look at "norwegian.com" before anywhere else (back then it was .no), giving them more customers.
As long as pax are distributed based on number of frequencies, I don’t see how this could be of big use for a newbie. Particularly not when the “big player” offers at high ORS scores already.
Finally reworking the pax distribution algorythm would be a much better approach I think.
I like this idea, but if you already have the fleet size limitation a separate ORS cap might not be necessary.
My problem with the ORS cap, similar to AK, is that this would allow established players to simply run lots of highly rated frequencies on the same route, which automatically appear at the top, so the new player can be crowded out.
The idea is great for new players but I can't see any realism in it. In the real world the bigger the carrier is, the bigger is the brand recognition, which in turn brings more passengers so small carriers don't have the same brand recognition as larger carrier. For example when I regularly flew Norwegian 10 years ago very few of my friends knew what it was, my answer was "some small domestic carrier in Norway". Nowadays they are a brand recognised throughout the world which in turns makes more people look at "norwegian.com" before anywhere else (back then it was .no), giving them more customers.
In real world nothing is more important than the price unless your company has some sort of contract with an specific airline. People just go to a site like skyscanner and take the cheapest flight which is suitable regarding departingtime and duration of the connection.
In real world nothing is more important than the price unless your company has some sort of contract with an specific airline. People just go to a site like skyscanner and take the cheapest flight which is suitable regarding departingtime and duration of the connection.
Well for this, you can play Airline Empires. It has a double price factor. The cheapest airline wins, so you keep changing prices every day until you get bored and leave. And second price factor, it’s cheaper than Airlinesim (free), so there you go. Double the reason for you to play Airline Empires.
In real world nothing is more important than the price unless your company has some sort of contract with an specific airline. People just go to a site like skyscanner and take the cheapest flight which is suitable regarding departingtime and duration of the connection.
Just as you state yourself, there are other factors that come to play when people choose a flight. That’s how this game works too. It has multiple factors weighing to a total score.
In real world nothing is more important than the price unless your company has some sort of contract with an specific airline. People just go to a site like skyscanner and take the cheapest flight which is suitable regarding departingtime and duration of the connection.
Which depends on the type of people which is why we should have the category of people who only care about price in the new update. When I book a flight I also care about preferences and previous experience, as well as marketing I have been subjected too. Although the price might be a small bit more expensive I will still book that flight (for example Virgin over BA, Norwegian over SAS, Jetblue over American, etc) It is basically image. Personally I am not a fan of these booking sites as they mostly offer more expensive price than the airline themselves, they really complicate with frequent flyer points and might even trick me.
BrokkenPiloot is not that wrong. In Economy Class, the fare nowadays is by far the most important factor when people choose a flight. Other factors have hardly any influence. Ask any airline sales representative.
Here in AS, this fact is not that much considered in the ORS. It is ridicilous, if the top rated flight costs twice as much as the cheapest flight and it’s also the reason why there are completely unrealistic cabin configurations (leading to more flight, more used slots etc.). This should be by far the biggest change to be done to make it more realistic!
But that’s Off-Topic (sorry, but I had to say it once again).
Interesting concept, at least worth to discuss. ORS capping has to be bigger, as it is nearly impossible to get a 99-rating right away due to the image factor that comes over time. So maybe cap ORS at 95 for intermediate and 90 for experts, something like that.
Instead of having different levels on one server, one could also differentiate the servers a bit more. Like Riem with less passenger demand. Most of the servers aren’t very different.
Interesting concept, at least worth to discuss. ORS capping has to be bigger, as it is nearly impossible to get a 99-rating right away due to the image factor that comes over time. So maybe cap ORS at 95 for intermediate and 90 for experts, something like that.
Instead of having different levels on one server, one could also differentiate the servers a bit more. Like Riem with less passenger demand. Most of the servers aren’t very different.
Sorry to take out the OT rant (see the plentiful discussion around new booking classes for that).
Can you explain why you would want an ORS cap at all, especially given that you correctly point out that the ORS rating is a bit lower for new airlines anyway?
As a new player and while my comment isn't so much about what the OP has requested, really it would be great for some more Tutorial content (with sound this time). I learned a lot from Youtube but let's face it this is a very niche game and there are only a hand full of Youtuber's providing content for Airlinesim. The beginner's guide is useful by yukawa but because AS is very realistic, that means it is quite complex and it's the complexity that I (and I assume most of us) love, but it does take a good while to learn and thus can be intimidating to new players (and we need new players).
