New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[simshell]

just unperk Spit14 tempest TA152 F4U4 F4UC for the lowest country when the highest one gets to high


that will have a HUGE effect:aok

[Zazen13]

Not a bad idea. AW's zone-limit was similiar, although not side specific. Keep in mind the side-effect will  be people on the advantaged side choosing to fly longer single sorties via re-arms and high endurance planes with large fuel loadouts. It will change the plane demographics during the restriction period to side-step the inter-sortie time-outs.

Zazen

[Pongo]

Originally posted by Toad
A question or two.

This time limit would be imposed on a pilot after landing a mission or after getting shot down or both?

Would there be a delay if you landed to rearm?

Good points. My vote..never on rearming.. yes on shot down 50% on landing.

[FiLtH]

I dont know.

  Id rather see something where no bomber or attack planes are available at frontline bases (those adjacent to enemy bases) affect the side with 20% more people.

 In other words no bombs or rockets at frontline bases.

[Toad]

Another thought; I understand the whole "point" of the game for some is "getting the reset".

Clearly, numbers advantage has a major effect in helping to "get the reset".

Reading the suggestions above, I think consideration has to be given to the "point of the game".

In short, if you make it ever more difficult for the side with numbers to get the reset, and folks DO change sides...... you may not get many resets.

Just a thing to consider; I'm not sure you want to create an automatic function that leads towards stalemate. At least if "reset" is your "point".

[Morpheus]

I think this is great; the fact that a CO of a company is asking his customers what they think about a certain change he is thinking about implementing.

What I am not so sure of is the idea itself. Restricting the use of a product that customers use is never a good idea. Altho its for only a short time, many dont have alot of time to use HTC's product/game. So I can garrantee that will be a problem and a complaint right from the start.

The numbers thing right now does suck. I love to fly with the people on the Rooks because as I've said before I have many friends who are on at the same time I am on and they are also Rook. Because of that I stay rook for the most part. I've been working on some of them to Go Knit with me and some have, some have not. I can think of atleast one squad off the top of my head that I am sure I can persuade to go nit. And a few more players who would most likely follow. This I think..................

Is what we need to do. Players need to take the initiative IMHO to resolve this problem if it is one to them I hate flying on the side with the most players. Sometimes 100 more players! Which is why I am looking to move to the Nits along with a few others and hopefully my squad will go along too.

This problem really wont take all that much effort to resolve. All we need is a few of you guys out there willing to help and make the move and we've got a good start.

With that being said I am going to return to the Nits and let my squad know. I'm also going to talk to a few of the squads I am in good with and see if I can't finnaly get them to move over as well.

Again. I think its GREAT that Dale is concerned about numbers in the MA. It shows us once again that he and his crew really do care about his customers.

[Zazen13]

A few other things to consider before even contemplating implimenting restrictions based on raw roster numbers...

1) What about people on extended AFK? Lots of people stay connected to AH virtually 24/7, even going so far as throwing up their AFK tag to take a 4-hour nap. This is espeically true if their country seems close to a  reset, they want to be "online" to get the reset perks. Perhaps you would need some sort of 'inactivity time-out timer" coded into the game, that would boot people who haven't registered any input in 30 minutes?

2) What about the plethora of dual-accounters that have a 2nd account permanently logged-on with their laptop on an enemy country for the purpose of vectoring themselves and teamates to CV's and their 'favorite' players on the enemy team? While hard to estimate the numbers without looking up IP addresses my conservative guess, based on some long-term carefull observations and note-taking, is this number is significant, perhaps 10 to 20 'snoop' accounts at any given time, mostly poised against the 'advantaged' team obviously.

3) Consider that to a large degree numerical disparities are handled internally by the players thru some common sense. When one country is advantaged the other two countries tend to focus more on the advantaged country than one another. So, in actuality the raw numbers may indicate a disparity, but on the map the numbers are actually equal or even less than equal when viewed from the perspective of 'opposition' facing each country.

Overall, I would caution against implimenting this idea without some consideration as to the ramifications upon gameplay and various ways players can manipulate the raw roster numbers to cause the time-out imposition on other teams. I warn against being naive and underestimating how conniving a determined individual or group can be when properly motivated.

Zazen

[Redd]

I  am in the "don't think limiting peoples ability to fly is a good thing" camp.


The perk multiplier already  provides an incentive , but not everyone cares about perks.

What if the perk multiplier was also linked to score , as it seems many people do care about score. The newer players might see that as way of improving their score if they changed to the underdog country.

It also may encourage a broader use of the planeset. I was quite surprised at what a difference the perk factor is when flying for a country with lower numbers. Flying for knights last night I was buying F4u-4's at 20 points - what a bargain  At the time they were 70 points for rooks.


So at least you are then "incenting" two camps , those that care about perks , and those that care about score.

[Paul33]

I dont think this will work HiTech... We need people to want to switch sides, not force them. We need better incentives... Simple economics

One way of doing this is to have less perk points to the side with %100 people and more to the lowest side. I'm talking a substantial amount of perk points.

For instance, the team with 200 players will have a .1 or even 0 perk point bonus, while the lower will have 3 or even 4.

The point is, people will want to switch to the other side since theyre getting tons of perkies for kills.

Overall, WE NEED BETTER INCENTIVES!

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by Redd
I  am in the "don't think limiting peoples ability to fly is a good thing" camp.


The perk multiplier already  provides an incentive , but not everyone cares about perks.

What if the perk multiplier was also linked to score , as it seems many people do care about score. The newer players might see that as way of improving their score if they changed to the underdog country.

It also may encourage a broader use of the planeset. I was quite surprised at what a difference the perk factor is when flying for a country with lower numbers. Flying for knights last night I was buying F4u-4's at 20 points - what a bargain  At the time they were 70 points for rooks.


So at least you are then "incenting" two camps , those that care about perks , and those that care about score.

Yes, we brought this up a while back. I thought it was a good idea. The upper echelon players can get perks by the thousands fairly easily. Perk points are a good incentive but not everyone flies perk planes. By applying the perk modifier also to the score formula you are adding an incentive to a whole new segment of the population. Typically those who monitor their score but do not care about perks are players who either don't fly perk planes regularly, or have enough perk points saved up to fly jets until the end of time. This would include alot of your upper-echelon fighter types who tend to have the largest impact on fights per capita.

Zazen

[Adjuster]

To those who consider the proposal a restriction or denial this would be overcome in 3 mouse clicks ie change country.

Not checked but I suspect most of the naysayers are Rooks who participate in RJO and dont want their Sunday fun interrupted.

I like the idea may give some of us time to consider why we got nailed by that 202 in our Lanc formation while making a brew, before upping a B17 formation to the same target.




Adjuster

[Waffle]

still think it's a simple matter of greed and rewards...even if a pilot doesn't fly for perks...knowing that he can make about 20+ perk points a kill will draw a few.

[RedTop]

Originally posted by nopoop
Ok, gave it some more thought.

Restricting a players ability to fly is a bad idea IMO. Now lets take whats available now to keep outnumbered countries pilots from logging.

The more the merrier ingame is the goal.

I can only give myself as an example. I don't care if my country is outnumbered. I'll find a place to play.

I only log when DAR is disabled. DAR is a game killer for me, I don't care about numbers.

Now when your being hammered one of the first thing that goes is DAR.

Why not use your current thought of unbalanced numbers and apply it to DAR instead ??

If a countries numbers are low and reaches a certain point, make Dar for that country undestructable ??

Then you might be getting the snot beat out of you but you still can pick your spots ??

That doesn't penalize the country with numbers and gives the outnumbered a reason to stay around and fight'um.

This sounds good to me. I'm used to being beat up. It's nothing new to me. Having flown for ROOKS for about a month during a SOLO Hiatus I found that they are just better organised than Knights. Why penalize them for being smarter. Bishes I can't speak to because I didn't fly with them.

HT, it is certainly your call. I for one appreciate and applaud the effort to adress the numbers problem. But to be honest , as a knight , I don't think the one side should have to give up time in the air because the other 2 countries can't or won't or don't know how to get the same type of organzation as Rooks.

I think although I dont have real proof , that the rooks out number the Knights and Bishes on a consistant basis. Daily I see them with more than the other 2 , and at atimes , it is a significant amount. As it turns out , today I really paid attention to what was going on on the map. It was a gang bang of nothing. The knights absolutley refused to get teamed up and get organized. Thats certainly not the rooks fault.

NoPoops idea about the DAR is my suggestion as well. I figure numbers wont change but I would like to see where to fight.

Again , it is your call. Limiting time is risky IMO. Newbie gets logged in for the first time..Jump in a plane for the rooks..Get's vulched and has to wait to reup. He may not like that and decide not to play. Isolated maybe..but it only takes a few for the word to get out.

[Arlo]

SERVER: Plane selection limited to aircraft with an ENY value of 50 or higher due to side disparity

[Widewing]

Originally posted by dedalos
I think this is forcing people.  Limiting playing time is not a good idea, IMO.  What would happened if you get killed trying to take off?  You have to wait and if it happens again, get pissed and log???

What if instead of limiting plaing time, you limit plane sets.  If a country has over - lets say - 10% no more 51s and LA7s.  Over 20%, no more spits, niks etc.  The planes and the % can be figured out after some analisys.  Also, you could do it by years.  Limmit the 1944 set then the 1943 etc.  

Who knows, we may see a rook hord coming down on us flying 202s and spit Is , LOL    

I think that you are on the right track, but that your solution is too complicated. Let's keep Hitech's time penalty but add some options.

I would rather see it this way when lopsided numbers reach a specific trigger level:

You take off in a fighter. You eventually lose the fighter. You can wait 15 minutes to take another fighter, or you could launch immediately in another class, such as a bomber or vehicle. Whatever the result of that sortie, no matter how short (in other words you couldn't just take off and land to reset fighter access), you can't get in another fighter for 15 minutes from the time you lost the first one. Loss of bombers or GVs bears no time penalty.

What this means is that after a horde hits a base, those guys who get shot down will either be coming back in a bomber or a vehicle. Maybe they won't be coming back at all because bombers and GVs take a while to go anywhere. But, at least they can still play. I think most guys will be back up in the bombers and GVs instantly, and that will greatly reduce the offensive power resulting from a numbers imbalance.

I think this would work and no one would be denied their opportunity to play. Only their options are curtailed. I would also bump up the player threshold to 25% as I've seen 20% shifts over the course of 30 minutes.

My regards,

Widewing