My suggestion is that it should be customizable. It would be really bad if players were forced to drastically slow down progression, but you don’t have to handle an A380 for 2 hours in day, you could do it over multiple days, keep the handling limit the same, or select a multiplier that allows players to handle aircraft at any time in between. It would a be better addition for players who have bought all of the stands at a large airport who want the airport to stay full for longer rather than for players who want to progress as quickly as possible
6 Likes
Heathrow would benefit from the handling times being increased, but INN would suffer and a lot of new players might give up. Customisable is the best option.
11 Likes
Agreed. I’d be very intrigued if that also helps airports with backtracking like CNN and SXM flow smoother more easily as well.
6 Likes
I mean, the only way it could be added is with customizablility
Love this idea, one thing that I think would help however is if they slow down the time of aircraft handling and round trip time, which I’m on board with, they should increase game rewards, so you don’t progress slower. What I mean by that is planes would just give more money per handling, and more SP and XP pre contract advancement. For example, for an A320, instead of giving you 500-600W every flight, it would give you somewhere around 900-1000W, and for max SP and XP advancement, it would give you like 80ish XP instead of the current 65 XP, and like +200 more SP, depending on the distance. I think this would balance this change/feature a lot more and still give people incentive to play.
5 Likes
Completely agreed
And doesn’t even have to be real times per se but just a few added minutes
But it seems like the devs don’t want this so I guess we just have to respect their decision
But I noticed this at NGO that even if I try to keep the handling steady, there’s always a long queue of departing aircraft and I for one hate reset the airport to have the queue cleared. Just doesn’t feel right
6 Likes
I think the problem with just increasing handling times for planes is that this is still meant as a mobile game, and handling doesn’t progress unless the game and the airport is open the whole time. So now it means you’re forced to keep your game open for 2 hours because you’re handling an A388?
Either the game needs to add background handling at least (not background pushback/departures/landing), or I think what needs to happen is a rebalance of when a plane is delayed, and how many handlers it takes to handle a plane. (and if I’m fully honest, I think background handling should be added regardless).
I’m taking a B77W as an example (LHR-SCL if it matters)
- Handling limit: 19m40s
- It takes 7 handlers to finish handling on time in 19m14s (so potentially still delayed if there’s any hiccup).
- Using the maximum handlers means handling in about 10-12 minutes)
For large airports, 20 minutes is nothing, and will still lead to mostly empty airports even if you always assign the minimum to just be on time.
Here’s a suggestion:
- Double the handling limit (so 40 minutes for a B77W, with minimum handling time 10 minutes and maximum handling time of 2 hours)
- Three statuses for the plane:
- On Time: handled within 25% of handling limit (so 30 to 50 minutes)
- Delayed: handled slower than 50 minutes
- Early: handled faster than 30 minutes
I don’t know how to calculate how many handlers it would take, but I do think it should be a little more “expensive” in handlers to get the plane into the “Early” stage, maybe “exponentially” so.
For example, if it takes 10 handlers to get the plane handled in 40 minutes (the exact handling limit), it could take another 2 to get it down to 30 minutes, and then another 4 to get into Early, and then another 8 to get down to the minimum handling time of 10 minutes (so total 24 handlers in order to achieve the fastest possible handling).
8 Likes
That’s why it must be added as an optional feature, maybe with a reward multiplier too. I think that background handling is planned for the future. If not, then I would definitely support it being added. However, I wouldn’t mind 2 hour handling times becuase I don’t have to handle all planes in one playing session, but I realise that my view is probably unpopular, so it should be optional.
3 Likes
the thing to keep in mind is that the viewpoint of players who have even unlocked the 77W, let alone those who play hours per day, every day, is only representative of a tiny portion of WoA players, and far fewer new players would play if they had to spend 30 minutes waiting to get rewards on a plane. it just wouldnt be very interesting. I agree with you on some of this, but I think it is far too extreme. The current balance, to me, represents a nice split of realism and still being fun for players who only play half an hour to an hour every day or two. The idea of background HANDLING though is great, and not something i have heard before.
5 Likes
Yeah, but I’m also suggesting things like realistic day/night cycles. I probably play for 4 ish hours each week across a couple of days. I just want to see my airports full. I don’t need to handle every aircraft in one session. But, I agree. If it’s paired with background handling, it would be great.
1 Like
I was just using the B77W as an example, but if I were to summarise my point more generically:
- Make all plane handling limits higher so you can “force” planes to stay in your airport longer without losing rewards.
- You can still achieve the same handling speed as today, it just takes more handlers.
So you choose between
- handle lots of planes at the same time, but slow
- handle less planes at the same time, but fast.
I understood that point, I just don’t feel that further slowing down the game would really benefit anyone, and it would turn a lot of people off WoA.
The game is too fast as is, slowing it down a smidge wouldn’t hurt.
but your criticism that this would slow the game down indicates you are misunderstanding.
Under my suggestion, you would have the option of slowing the game down, but you’d still be able to handle planes at the current max speed.
1 Like
But less of them
That’s part of the strategy we already can do now though? with 100 handlers, you can handle 10 B77W’s with 10 handlers each for 10 minutes, or you can handle 14 of them but they take 20 minutes.
I’m not asking to slow down the fastest handling time, I’m asking to increase the limit of slow handling to not be considered delayed
4 Likes
Hmmm interesting
I agree with this but I hope it also involves the day going a bit slower with the handling times
This could be the perfect feature to include with the split handling
I don’t see that happening. The reason why there are handling limits is becuase the devs want to incorporate some way to “fail”. It would also lower realism. But, the fact that there are handling crew limits (total across the airport) also lowers realism. It draws attention to a whole other problem. As I’ve repeated before, my only aim with handling time changes is to be able to see my airports filled with aircraft without just avoiding handling them. That could be achieved by lengthening handling limits, but it would be better if handling times could be made longer in the first place and it could be paired with other aspects of time personalization like flight time changes (it’s currently very unrealistic).
2 Likes
The reason why there are handling limits is becuase the devs want to incorporate some way to “fail”.
The failure state is already pretty much impossible to reach unless you’re manually handling all planes (no ramp agent).
Personally, I’ve only ever ended up in the delayed state at INN airport, because it’s basically the only airport in the game where you can land enough planes fast enough that you could activate handling on more planes than you have equipment for and cause delays because your fuel truck is in use on a B764 while an E175 needs one.
If the devs want to increase the risk of fail states, they will need to severely cut the amount of equipment that available, especially at larger airports.
my only aim with handling time changes is to be able to see my airports filled with aircraft without just avoiding handling them. That could be achieved by lengthening handling limits, but it would be better if handling times could be made longer in the first place
But the problem is that you risk alienating a lot of players if it suddenly start taking much longer to handle planes in a single airport. increasing the limit means you can achieve what you want (planes at the airport longer without them just sitting there doing nothing) but keeps the option for players to move planes fast.
Technically it would also increase the risk of failing, since slower handling = equipment in use longer, so there’s a risk you start handling too many planes at the same time.