Mainly because just in a matter of days (or weeks) my main competitor, who 2 months ago, has raked up 76 aircrafts, 48 of which are A319/320/321 and has complete market share now. And I've been trying for 5-6 months. Yes, I'm a beginner. Yes, I'm learning. But this is not a challenge or a fun way to play or learn. This is absolutely Abuse of the game. In a matter of days, he's set up monopoly over the entire country. I kinda understand that this is money obtained from his profitable and successful holding and other subsidary, but this is a joke now.
There has to be a limit on how much money can be pumped in a company or how many aircrafts can be bought in a month or something that gives everyone (esp newcomers and beginners) a fair chance. This kind of abuse for the game takes away the fun of playing the game.
Hope you guys do something that makes the new game world a fair playground. I'd root for something like that over dynamic turnaround times. You can be really dynamic but it doesnt help if your competitor has 25 flights between a city pair in 2 months and you don't even have 10. Yea, he's smart, give the man a cookie!
I do not see this as unreasonable. When you have played the game long enough you know how to play it. Doubling the equity every month is not unreasonable.
While I understand your worries, what would be a propper solution for this?
I’ve been into this game for more than 11 years now, think that I completely understand the game, but am unable to suggest a solution.
So, what should be done?
Lock out “experienced” players from a new to start server? Who is “experienced”? When are you experiended enough to be also locked out then?
Prevent old grown enterprises from establishing new subsidiaries with their cash? (That’s the scenario you describe) Well, it’s the nature of this game to invest money to make more out of it.
The very only duable thing that comes to my mind is:
Eliminate “unrestricted market access” to create a wider save base for beginners as all of those countries would be overrun by the big ones sooner or later.
@Renjitphilip While many won't agree with you. I do.
Some people like to play in a creative mode, others prefer to play in a destructive mode. AirlineSim tries to cater both audiences. Your description of the game experience (which btw matches mine) is exactly the reason why AirlineSim fails me at times.
There are so many different game servers - however none of them does allow to play the game in a pure creative mode. In some regions it is simply impossible to schedule planes, try out routes, create (friendly) alliances / interlinings - without having to worry about an oversized company destroying the market. In the real world, there is a market for small airline companies - even in Europe. There is no way on earth any big carrier would ever try to fly 60 times a day from Kiev to all the three Moscow airports (to cite an example). That is both unrealistic and destructive - however allowed in AirlineSim. It seems to be not only tolerated behaviour - it is actually a desirable game plan for some people...
To be fair and honest, I did find my niche (creative mode) in AirlineSim and this is my advice for you: I started playing on older servers in remote countries where passenger demand is very low. There, competition is healthy and the potential for destruction is almost zero. Forget about Europe, Asia or North America. I find playing these remote countries much more interesting and rewarding. Maybe that's an option for you?
@Renjitphilip While many won't agree with you. I do.
Some people like to play in a creative mode, others prefer to play in a destructive mode. AirlineSim tries to cater both audiences. Your description of the game experience (which btw matches mine) is exactly the reason why AirlineSim fails me at times.
There are so many different game servers - however none of them does allow to play the game in a pure creative mode. In some regions it is simply impossible to schedule planes, try out routes, create (friendly) alliances / interlinings - without having to worry about an oversized company destroying the market. In the real world, there is a market for small airline companies - even in Europe. There is no way on earth any big carrier would ever try to fly 60 times a day from Kiev to all the three Moscow airports (to cite an example). That is both unrealistic and destructive - however allowed in AirlineSim. It seems to be not only tolerated behaviour - it is actually a desirable game plan for some people...
To be fair and honest, I did find my niche (creative mode) in AirlineSim and this is my advice for you: I started playing on older servers in remote countries where passenger demand is very low. There, competition is healthy and the potential for destruction is almost zero. Forget about Europe, Asia or North America. I find playing these remote countries much more interesting and rewarding. Maybe that's an option for you?
I agree with you when you say to start on old servers. I started playing on deveu(might have spelled wrong) which has a lot of established airlines.I started in South africa where there where only two airlines that share the market 60/40 . I was also worried that i wont survive , but I adopted a low cost (not entirely) airlines strategy , because the airports in Africa does not have a problem with capacity I started with a small CRJ900 and made my economy prices lower then my competitors . After 3 months of playing , building , adapting and expanding , I operate 10 aircraft with very good load factors and yes my profits are not very large I still make a profit and I can at the moment afford to lease at least one brand new aircraft per week to grow my fleet and airline. I do however wonder if the airports which operate at full capacity cant be upgraded some how to accommodate more slots?
I blame it on the modern video game industry: people today simply take it for granted that they should be held by the hand and guaranteed instant success no matter what, because that's what they've grown used to.
If you pick the most crowded server and choose your hub at the most competitive airport, you will fail. Here or in real life, same thing. In fact, unlike real life that only has one "server", it's much easier to be successful here because you can just choose whichever world has the least competition for your airport before you even start. But again, a beginner still learning the ropes will have trouble if competing against someone who's been here for years and knows what to do. Again, here or in real life, it's all the same: someone who's been there for ages and knows how things work will have a massive advantage over someone who's still starting in the industry. That's just life.
Mainly because just in a matter of days (or weeks) my main competitor, who 2 months ago, has raked up 76 aircrafts, 48 of which are A319/320/321 and has complete market share now. And I've been trying for 5-6 months. Yes, I'm a beginner. Yes, I'm learning. But this is not a challenge or a fun way to play or learn. This is absolutely Abuse of the game. In a matter of days, he's set up monopoly over the entire country. I kinda understand that this is money obtained from his profitable and successful holding and other subsidary, but this is a joke now.
There has to be a limit on how much money can be pumped in a company or how many aircrafts can be bought in a month or something that gives everyone (esp newcomers and beginners) a fair chance. This kind of abuse for the game takes away the fun of playing the game.
Hope you guys do something that makes the new game world a fair playground. I'd root for something like that over dynamic turnaround times. You can be really dynamic but it doesnt help if your competitor has 25 flights between a city pair in 2 months and you don't even have 10. Yea, he's smart, give the man a cookie!
Assuming you started right around the same time as your competitor you had the same advantages/disadvantages that he had. You've had your first lesson in Airlinesim which is a VERY cutthroat simulation. At a minimum you absolutely must control one major hub (50+%) within a country or you will soon be pushed out of the market if your larger competitor decides to take you on. And usually if they are a good player they will sooner or later try to push you out of the game. If you can't compete at your hub and there is another city available in the country size 6 or better you may be better off moving your operations to a city you can control. Connections matter in this game. You more connections you can get the easier it is to fight a rate war.
But most importantly. What did this person do that made them successful? Could you duplicate it in the next server? Can you find a better strategy? Will the next server have used aircraft or only new aircraft. This will radically change some folks starting strategies.
Like someone else mentioned it may also be worthwhile in looking at the older servers and finding a protected country that currently does not have an airline. You can learn there how to play the game with minimal costs to mistakes. Start a company there multiple times and learn the best growth strategies. IE...try strategies that include using older (cheaper) aircraft and test your growth curve compared to newer aircraft. But using older aircraft comes at a price...your ratings. And when you go to compete Internationally you'll find yourself at a severe disadvantage (unless you find a way (or ways) to mitigate the image problem.
Assuming you started right around the same time as your competitor you had the same advantages/disadvantages that he had.
Except it sounds like he didn't. An established player who's been around for a few years and built up a successful operation might have XXX millions cash lying around and just happens to plonk a subsidiary with a start capital of XXX millions into exactly the same territory as some poor beginner. Whether you want to prevent this in some way, or not, is like all the other discussions about whether the game should favour startups and new players, or make life easy and possibly boring for the long established. So it goes back to the eternal question of how to strike a balance between old and new players and keep everyone happy (including the AS team I suppose) :D
Yes you can put even billions into a subsidiary in a different country, but unless it is a country with unrestricted access, it makes no sense. And you should not be starting your main holding in a country with unrestricted access at all to start with.
Yes, you should absolutely not start your first company in unrestricted airspace. Even a small restricted market is preferable. Once you've run out of growth opportunities there you then move to unrestricted markets. This is why I just simply never built an airline in an unrestricted market. Too much risk.