You guys almost have to think about this...The basic nature of the game.
It is about COMBAT . Combat is two or more parties fighting each other. It is competition to see who will win. Even in a furball, even if you don't give a red rat's arnold about the friendlies around you, and your just flying for the thrill of the acm, You still are competing with somebody else. The little guys in red icons. So, air combat being what it is, everybody after awhile gets shot down; some take it better than others, and it reflects on channel 200. (example:)
SYSTEM:lasz shot you down
200:FrodeMk3:GK, lasz,
I hope that is the kind of behaviour you usually get to see...but often enough, It's more like:
200:Hoing f@g vulcher run home land your kills
I'm sure that you've all seen more of that than you like.
But it's what arrises from frustration in competitive gameplay.So, after awhile, people give up trying to be on friendly terms with their enemys, and stick to being friends with thier countrymen. There are some that join squads, and those squaddies become tightly nit, some even to the point where no matter what the squad does, that's what they do, as long as they have that circle of friends. But, some keep friends in other squads, or maybe the people that fly single, etc. So, they elect to always stay one country. It's not loyalty to a 'chesspiece', It's more like loyalty to the people they talk to, play and interact with everyday. There's some where that is more important than anything, and it's a big part of the game.
Now, before I get totally derailed off the topic...Something is going to have to be done about the side balancing, because the ENY does'nt seem to work. Or maybe it does, with making people not being able to fly for one country, and have to jump to another. But, If you have whole groups doing it, the lopsided balance just pulls the other way...imaging, you were outnumbered, but you could fly any plane you want. Meanwhile, Your NME's flying around in B5N's...You have the perfect target-rich environment.
(LOL). If you can fix it so that the sides remain balanced, and everybody can fly...That's the trick. Imagine taking a long, rectangular box full of fine sand; You have the sand piled up in one end. You tilt the box so that the sand runs to the other end...but by the time you get enough tilt on it, 2/3's or more runs all the way to the far end...You tilt back the other way to compensate...You still have too much sand at one end, but It's not quite as bad as before. You tilt a little less; It evens out even more. Problem is, after awhile, you can't get the sand perfectly smooth and even through the box, without directly going in the box, and moving the last bits around by hand.
Trouble is, what can HTC use to smooth us out, that works well for everyone?