ENY reloaded

[crockett]

I've posted this idea in a few topics but hasn't seemed to grab any support or real attention. I figured I'd give it one last attempt in it's own topic and spell out exactlly what I'm suggesting.

We all know there are a lot of players that do not like the way ENY works currently and it's causing a lot of issues. I personally realize that ENY can be of benefit but in it's current form, ENY just doesn't work the way it's intended to.

With the current ENY system, based solely off the total numbers on a county it fails to be effective.  Country A might indead have 20 or 30 more players than country B or C. However both B and C might be attacking A and not fighting each other.

What this causes is country A gets hit by ENY disadvantage but is also at a numbers disadvantage on both fronts. I see this happen quite often and it needs some attention.

IMO, the solution to this would to have ENY work by the total number of players in a "zone" of a map. If country A wants to hoard on country B then they can do it, but they will be affected by ENY and have to fly high ENY planes. However at the other end of the map, where less of country A is fighting maybe aginst a bigger number of country C they aren't affected by the same ENY number.

This would have a few "good"  side affects IMO.

1) would allow guys that want to fly low ENY planes to still be able to do it any time they wanted. If you want to fly an LA 7 then you can, but you have to go to another part of the map with less players from your country.

2) we all know many players can't live with out their low ENY rides, it would cause them to move around the map to fight in other areas. This would have an effect on the hoarding that currentlly goes on.

We all know for many players ENY doesn't have any effect as they fly high ENY rides, but overall a large number don't . So this would cause them to move around a little more to diffrent locations and help with the hoarding problems.

To make a system like this effective I don't think you could have hard coded "zones' meaning  splitting the map up in specific zones. I think the zones would have to be liquid with maybe a 4 base buffer or something like that.

We all know the war front tends to move around all over the place. So maybe if the buffer zone worked like the old "base capture by order" system worked. Meaning if one base is getting hoarded by a large number of players from country A then a ENY buffer zone starts affecting the other local bases of that country.

One issue I could see is large missions could quickly hurt the ENY of that country in a specific area. I can't really see a way around that, other than have the ENY configured by total average numbers every few minutes rather than constantly.

Just a tought.. Share your opinions.

[Blooz]

Let's see...

The arenas are limited to time period.

The arenas are limited in total population.

The ENY limits plane types available.

There's a limit to how often you can switch teams.

Now you want to limit which portion of the map you can fly in?



Yeah...that's gonna fly.

You running for Congress by any chance?

[crockett]

Originally posted by Blooz
Let's see...

The arenas are limited to time period.

There is no time limit on anything, where you got that I have no clue. Only thing in regards to time I mentioned was to use the average number of players every few mins rather than constanlly.

The arenas are limited in total population.

Total population has nothing to do with what I posted. However a side advantage of what I suggested would "help" stop one team from being hoarded by the other, late at night when numbers are low.

The ENY limits plane types available.

ENY already limits the planes you can fly. My suggestion would still allow you to fly any plane you choose, but you would have to do it in areas less populated by your countrymen. If you felt you had to fly in that zone on the map you could still do it, but you would have to do it in a ENY restricted plane.

There's a limit to how often you can switch teams.

What does switching teams have to do with the price of tea in China or anything in this topic? There is a limit to switching teams for reasons other than ENY, so team switching has nothing to do with this topic.

Now you want to limit which portion of the map you can fly in?



Yeah...that's gonna fly.

You running for Congress by any chance?

As I posted you can still fly any part of the map you wish. However if you choose to fly in a hoard greatly out numbering the other team.. Well you won't be flying ENY 5 planes. You will have to fly a high ENY plane to do so.


I think you either failed to actually understand what I wrote or you didn't bother to read it.  Most of your complaints have nothing to do with what I suggested. I'd suggest you read it again.

[Blooz]

Let me see if I can spell it out so you can understand.

We have enough that limits the game.

Your modification adding another limitation isn't going to help anything.

It's natural that people group together for protection and the multiplication of firepower.

To artificially turn the Main Arenas into the Duelling Arena is dumb.

[SlapShot]

It's an idea, but it hasn't been fleshed out to see if it is feasable and worth the effort.

What constitutes a "zone" ... how are "zone" boundries defined ?

What constitutes a "member" of a zone ? Is it the people in the towers in a "zone" ... or is it the amount of active GVs and planes in the "zone" ?

If it's people in the towers then that can be gamed. If it's people in the air and on the ground ... that can be gamed too.

What happens when one "zone" encounters a friendly large mission that left from another "zone" ? ENY goes thru the roof until the mission clears the "zone" ?

What if a large furball has formed on the boundries of 2 opposing "zones" ... when you push forward into the enemy "zone" ENY goes down, but then the opposing teams pushes the furball back over into your "zone" ... now the ENY skyrockets ... sound like fun ?

Where and how do CVs fit in this "zone" notion ?

Any idea on how many server cycles it would take to implement this ?

Would something like this drive HTC to have to invest in larger servers to implement ?

Any idea on what the cost is for the server(s) it takes to run this game ?

If they had to get bigger servers, would that cause them to outgrow their space in a Co-Loc facility and have to purchase/rent a large space ?

Do you have any idea what it costs to rent space in a Co-Loc facility ?

Any idea on how much development/testing hours this would take ?

I'm not trying to poke you in the eye ... it's just that when most come up with an idea ... they think that the scope is just the idea and never consider anything past the idea.

[hubsonfire]

I think the presumption that ENY was meant to balance the sides, or would result in balanced sides, was incorrect to begin with.

While there might be merits in trying to keep people from mobbing together and trying to steamroll the lesser numbered groups, I don't see how letting them have whatever plane they want is going to solve any problems. While the zone idea might work, what would likely happen instead is that the horde would gravitate to the border areas of each zone, so that they would be able to fly their low ENY planes within the safety of the horde. At least at present, ENY keeps them out of those planes. What you suggest would simply give them those planes back.

Really, the only issue ENY causes is whining. That's it. Nothing HTC can do will ever stop the whining.

[The Fugitive]

Blooz your one of those "the glass is half empty" kinda guys.

Sure you can look at it as "your limiting which portion of the map you can fly in", or you can look at it as seeing as ENY has all ready stopped you from flying an uber plane "anywhere" for your country, his idea will open a front with out an ENY restriction, so you CAN fly your uber plane away from the horde.

I'd tie the zones to the supply zones that they had before. Those that take off in that zone are counted for that zone. Those that are NOT launching from the ENY hurt zone can try to fly a few sectors to get to the horde, but will be either in for that enjoyable long flight, or will be out of fuel when they get there.

[Blooz]

I'm saying that it doesn't matter if it's 4 on 1, 40 on 10, or 400 on 100.

Someone's always going to be complaining that they are outnumbered.

You're not solving anything by creating a microcosim of 'mini arenas' on a map.

Eventually you find out that if you fly alone, you die alone.

You want the 'fair fight'?

You want the 1 vs. 1 all fair and square?

Go to the duelling arena.

That's what it's designed for.

[crockett]

Originally posted by The Fugitive
Blooz your one of those "the glass is half empty" kinda guys.

Sure you can look at it as "your limiting which portion of the map you can fly in", or you can look at it as seeing as ENY has all ready stopped you from flying an uber plane "anywhere" for your country, his idea will open a front with out an ENY restriction, so you CAN fly your uber plane away from the horde.

I'd tie the zones to the supply zones that they had before. Those that take off in that zone are counted for that zone. Those that are NOT launching from the ENY hurt zone can try to fly a few sectors to get to the horde, but will be either in for that enjoyable long flight, or will be out of fuel when they get there.

Exactly, what I'm trying to suggest would allow guys to fly the planes they wanted to fly. It's just they would have to do it in non ENY restricted zones assuming the the ENY was in effect anywhere on the map.

Of course if the zones are balanced then there would be no ENY limits.

SlapShot and hubsonfire..

I'm not suggesting my idea is the end all, but I think it's a good idea to build from.  There is of course no way to tell in a crystal ball how anything would work, stuff like this takes testing and tweaking. I'm just trying to suggest a solution that would allow people to fly what they wanted, when ever they wanted and also help a little on the hoarding.

As far as fighting at the edge of the zones.. That wouldn't work because if done how I suggested, the ENY would be liquid and buffer out to the surrounding bases if and only if there was a big numbers advantage.

Personally I think all the tools are already there for HTC to implement something like this. The game already tracks where players are and how many players there are in any certain section.  

I'm not a programmer nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, however I do think most of the things needed to do this are already within the game. It's just a matter of figuring out how to tie them all together and have it work properly.


One other suggestion I'd make that I didn't add in the first post.

Use the current red line method used to show un-capturable bases for the ENY buffers.

A green line around a base would notate 0-4 ENY limitations

A Yellow line would notate 5-9 ENY limitations

A orange line would notate anything over 10 ENY.

Number and colors could be changed of course. However doing that would allow anyone to quickly see where they could launch their favorite plane with out any ENY restrictions. Would save a player from having to jump from tower to tower trying to figure out where to take off in his plane.

BTW nothing would stop you from flying into a ENY restricted zone with a ENY plane if you base hopped or what ever. It would just restrict you from doing so locally.

[crockett]

Originally posted by Blooz
I'm saying that it doesn't matter if it's 4 on 1, 40 on 10, or 400 on 100.

Someone's always going to be complaining that they are outnumbered.

You're not solving anything by creating a microcosim of 'mini arenas' on a map.

Eventually you find out that if you fly alone, you die alone.

You want the 'fair fight'?

You want the 1 vs. 1 all fair and square?

Go to the duelling arena.

That's what it's designed for.

No offense, but I really don't think you are seeing the forest for the trees in what I'm suggesting.

What's worse.. ENY affecting every single person on the entire country?

or..

ENY only affecting the people whom choose to hoard in a certain part of the map?

What I'm suggesting would give people the ability to fly what ever they wanted any time they wanted. What is so bad about that?  This would be less restriction as to what you could fly the majority of the time.

[Ghastly]

Blooz - I don't think the intent is to further limit what you can do, it's to better target ENY to where it's supposedly intended to be helping rather than essentially grounding a significant number of players who for whatever reason would rather sit in the tower and "wait it out" than switch sides, log off, or go to the other arena.  Which in my experience happens not infrequently.

I prefer this idea to the idea mentioned elsewhere of limiting the number of aircraft (or vehicles) "in flight" from any particular base to some calculated number, presumably based on a ratio of players on per side.  It's going to be really frustrating when 3 of 5 squadmates can fly - and 2 can't.  Same for a mission.

I think this idea has merit, and what I think might be a good process would be to base ENY at any particular time at any particular field on the ratio of friendly to enemy players in a particular radius from an airfield/base (for example 50 miles), with a threshold or base calculated value before it's applied to prevent low population concentration - such as 5 bombers lifting from a way-back field -from triggering it.

HTC already must tally the number of players per side in each grid, so if processing the player distances from each field periodically was excessive, using the 9 grid area around a field would probably suffice.  

I also think that a player who is in the tower or non-moving vehicle for longer than a particular amount of time - and hasn't moved mouse or keyboard - should be dropped from ENY calculations.  But that's another argument.

By localizing ENY, you avoid the problem where as soon as ENY gets bad, 1/5 of the players end up in the tower b***ing.  And you spread the fight out some, which is not a bad thing.

In order of preference for the ideas fielded:

1) Localized ENY.
2) Cap on vehicles in flight from each field
3) Arena wide ENY (what we have now)
4) Supply system similiar to that in other sims (shudder)

[Bronk]

I just want a harder hitting ENY.
Start it at 5 and go from there.



Bronk