I have heard that the CT arena is'nt well attended. I think I would go there more if more people went. But they are probably thinking the same. I'd imagine the reason is, that in the MA, the fruits of your labor are reflected in the "ownership" of the map. It gives you something to "work" towards.
The CT arena to me is just a few guys flying around, at at the end of the day it doesnt matter much what happened. Atleast thats my take on it, if Im wrong say so. So how could we get more people interested?
What if the CT was setup in a way that promoted heavy bombing formations against industrial targets. The CT map could be the historical Europe map, with the target german industry. Each reset, the knights,bishops and rooks would have thier own turn at defending Germany, while the other 2 teams played the allies.
The defending team would likely be outnumbered each map, but the object is to hinder allied attacks, not expect to destroy every bomber group everytime. A formula could be created that shows the number of allied losses/ damage on target vs the axis losses/ damage of their home targets.
When joining the CT..you would be locked into your home country's team, the same team you are in the MA. The attack procedure would be mission based rather than single sorties.
The outcome of the CT map, would reflect perk prices for the MA. It would be a sort of connecting the 2 arenas. The standard perk prices in the MA would be the cost of losing the war in the CT. The better you did defending in the CT the lower the prices would be in the MA. A total victory condition could actually make perk prices for planes very cheap.
It would require a custodian from HTC to input the data each reset...mainly perk prices for the side that defended in the CT, so whether its feasible or not I dont know. But it would create more realistic fun in one arena, and at the same time create a sort of accomplishment that would carry over into the MA.
With the current ENY restrictions, if you did well in the CT the previous map, the following map would allow you to fly the planes you wish, by boosting their ENY values to attainable levels. But only if you did well in your team's time in the barrel.
Perhaps since it would have such an affect in the MA, it would require 1 night a week(or a weekend afternoon) to hold this in the CT. The result would be immediately applied to the MA and remain that way until the next week's results, no matter how many map resets are done in the MA that week.
Its just an idea. But imagine the bragging rights a team could have if they defended well, and were able to determine their destiny in the MA for a week, from what they did in the CT!