It's HTC's game, they can (obviously) do what they want with it.
And I do like the concept of ENY, as I understood it originally - a mechanism to prevent one side from steamrolling the other side. But the problem is that in practice, I can't honestly say I've ever seen it doing that. I see an awful lot of 80% of the players on a side at one front, while the remaining 20% are trying to defend the other front at 5 to 1 odds against the 80% of the players playing for that country which are pitted against them - (and getting generally steamrolled of course in the process).
Way too much of the time it seems as though the choice when you sign in is to join the big bunch and whomp on one side or join the little bunch and get whomped on. And even when I've seen ENY kick in, it doesn't generally seem to change that in the slightest. Some guys log, and a bunch of guys sit in the tower and complain, and the majority continue trying to overwhelm the other side with numbers, usually with enough of a numbers advantage to negate the limitations of the aircraft they've been limited to.
In fact, the biggest impact ENY has from what I can see is usually on the "forgotten" guys who were already locally outnumbered trying to defend at the other end at the map - who give up trying to defend at that point and go join the herd at the other end. From what I can see the higher ENY climbs, the more it simply concentrates the players further in one giant herd as everyone groups up.
My biggest frustration the other night was that I'd spent the night flying from the CV along side a bunch of guys, and as soon as the Rooks took a field, a significant number of players on the other side logged, and the CV mission - which was 2 1/2 or 3 sectors away from any furball I might add - stalled and fell apart completely.
I can fly any plane in the game and do reasonably well in it. It wasn't about the choice of plane - except by proxy, the plane (F6F) that was chosen for the mission was ENY'ed out at launch time and the whole thing turned into a CF, fell apart, and the night ended abruptly as the mission splintered.
I was upset because a game mechanic which adds very little to my PERSONAL enjoyment of the game - and which moreover doesn't seem do do diddlysquat if I understand what it's supposed to do - managed to end something I had been enjoying abruptly, stone cold.
Maybe ENY should be set for each player at the point where it is when they log in or change sides - and remain at that level until they log out or change sides again. At least then it would encourage sideswitching to the lower side when you log in and discourage switching to the higher side later in the game. It would also end the current nonsense of sitting in the tower hoping to wait it out, and it wouldn't interfere and penalize those players who chose a side when the numbers were even. Nor would it further handicap those players who are already fighting with a local numbers disadvantage.
Or even better yet it should be applied locally in the first place, and then it might actually work (if the intent is to even the playing field).
Unless of course the intent is to have players simply log in frustration, in which case there's no reason to change it at all - from what I can see it does a pretty good job of it already.
That's all. Rant over.
