I think the ENY should be more harsh. By that I mean the scale needs to be more dynamic AND more quick on the draw when it comes to balancing the arenas. There are far too many Nik2, La7, and Spit16 as compared to other planes that were far more previlant in WWII. Yeah, I've heard this isnt a WWII sim but rather an air combat sim using WWII planes so the usage scale in WWII is moot, but still.
I like the ENY system currently in place. The split arenas is a minor headache that can be tackled by just watching the ratio of players to open slots. If te ratio is 302/300, then there will be a few slots open soon so hang out for a bit and just watch. If the ratio is 385/200, then one might as well move into the other arena until the ratio evens out.
How "harshly" ENY affects your side when you begin to overbalance your opponents could be configured in a number of ways, the simplest of which would be adjusting the refresh multiplier (0.50 * ENY) in the example I've given, if that was what was desired. I suspect that most people find ENY to be an acceptable concept, but are disturbed by the abruptness. And most people find the arena split to be more of an issue than you do - especially if you disco out of the more popular arena where your friends are playing - which is why I think that something less drastic would be better.
There is nothing in the idea's I've put forth that would preclude keeping multiple late war arena's if that were desirable - if the process worked as I envision it doing so, it would do so regardless of how many arena's it were implemented in.
The real question though is, does anyone see flaws in the logic I've applied. If implemented, would it spread the players out when there are many of them (anti-hording)? Would it effectively address the lo-cap issues? Would it be an effective and more gentle ENY application?
What adverse side effects do people see that I'm missing?
<S>
