Lute ... been there ... done that.
No numbers cap with my idea but they
are similar. This idea, or one very similar, HAS been suggested by several players over the years. I know I have put it out there in a few threads. I started this thread because I can't recall this exact idea being put forth in its own thread for consideration by HTC.
This really is a great idea. There is only Open or Closed and I like tying it to ENY as opposed to a hard # cap. ENY or Hard Cap is almost the same thing but by using ENY the arena opens up faster because it would be faster to drop one countries ENY than fill up a cap. It is BETTER than a cap because this idea balances out the sides which the current setup does not.
The arena would be open or closed based on the balance of players solely.
If all arenas are balanced then all are open.
The beauty of this idea is small numbers or large, the arenas would be balanced from the get-go. You not only eliminate ENY for the most part but both arenas are almost always Open and switching arenas becomes more viable.
There is hardly ever an imbalance in player numbers.
My only concern is in the wee hours when 75-150 players are flying and there IS an odd number of players.
My only solution there is for them to change countries or not fly that arena.
If you HAVE to fly an arena and it is out o' whack because of the small number of players in it you CAN still join it but only if you change sides.
I don't think this would impact many "regular" players that much because you would have the new pilots who really don't have any country loyalty changing countries and balancing out the sides.
Check out the roster in an arena that has a huge country # disparity. Many of the players on the high numbered side have no squad and many are quite new. I doubt they would care if they are Bish, Rook or Knit.
Then you have players like myself that have no problem changing countries to balance out the sides.
The hard core "I have to fly X country" players would still get to fly their country of choice. The players w/o country loyalty would balance things out.
During most the rest of the day you would be able to pick/choose your arena and changing sides wouldn't even come up. (unless you wanted to that is) Most of the day the numbers in both LW arenas combined are fairly balanced.
I really think this would work and should be tried.