You can debate and try to define "why" the eny works or does not, but that is not the point.
The point is how a company responds to it's supporters. And EA made some massive mistakes cowtowing to the "let's play nice and fair" crowd. There is always going to be a winner and loser. Deal with it, life sucks at times. When "games" are built to try and even out the playing field so someones feelings don't get hurt, then they begin down a very bad and unending road.
You already have people that can't wait for the arena to be leveled out by limiting player numbers, since the eny didn't work last night. The eny as a "concept" is the problem here, not the eny itself. You simply cannot please everyone, and once you start trying to then you continually have to make adjustments. It wont end. Limit the number of players that can log in, but then most can play on Sunday and due to the limiter, some can't get in the arena. There's always going to be something that can be done next to "balance" the game, what next?
Frankly, I am not speaking from simply a participant point of view, I am speaking from a builder point of view. A small group of 7 people got together and built a game once EA took out MCO. I build the physics model. It's a classic car mod. We did it for free, as a Mod on an existing game, and our first offering netted us 6,000 downloads. Our next patch downloaded 5,000 hundred. Our most recent release of a new full build has taken us to over 11,000 copies.
We get people all the time complaining that one car handles better, or one car is faster on the drag strip.
Our Formal Reply has been and always will be, deal with it.
Life sucks, 70 Cuda handles different than a 65 Stang or 49 Merc. Get over it. Never would it occur to me to adjust the physics so all the cars performed the same but "looked kewl" Never would it occur to me to change the core foundation of my game so someone who chose to drive the 32 Coupe could keep up with a cobra for the sake of "fairness" it would Never occur to me to limit the cars on the nights when most were playing. Good Grief, when "most" are playing that's when the best or worst advertising happens, good idea to tick people off when "most" are watching and playing. Prime Time Negative Advertising, brilliant strategy.
What a total load of BS. The fact of the matter is in this "game" the planes are available and we should be allowed to fly them when we get on. I don't need to check with my schedule to make sure that other people are on at the same time, I don't want to have to make an appointment to fly so I can make sure my group can run a mission we plan with the planes we chose.
It has nothing to do with How the eny value is calculated, it is All about that there even has to Be an eny value to make a game fair!
I've been doing this a while, and have seen good products go bad by making bad game play decisions.
The Best way to deal with complaints and whines is to simply, as a game designer, say heres the planes, heres the maps, have at it. Once you start to "manage" gameplay then you cannot stop.
HT will spend more time on gameplay and balance than he will on new planesets, ya that's what I bargained for.
I don't log in to my recreation to be managed, I log in for my own reasons, and my own goals. Sometimes I just have this urge to grab a plate of spaghetti, take a flock of B-17s up for a long ride and chat with some friends while I eat, or catch up on some news while I alt out towards a target. Other times I feel like grabbing a P-38 and diving into a fight. And then there are the times that I want to log in with the squad and try a mission that we sat down and planned out the other day. Point is, I cannot schedule what I "feel" like doing, when I feel like doing it.
There used to be, since Air Warrior, this ability to do what you wanted when you felt like it, as it is now, there is a single minded focus to the game that forces gameplay on someone elses rules and objectives and this I did not sign up for, and will not continue with.
Damn shame really. But I can see by the replies in this thread that it's ok, there's alot out there that missed this point entirely, and the game I remember was gone along time ago anyway.
