is this necessary

[DrBone1]

why not trying to log into the Blue arena and fill it up then we would not be having this prob ? why do you have to go into Orange ? be smart and fill Blue then caps will raise on Orange i dont get why every1 is complaining about this i play primetime and have never had a prob getting in  

[dedalos]

I think you are kmissing the point.
It's not about getting into any specific arena or being able to fly with your squad.

It's about having to play with low numbers due to arena split.


Only for those with a lack of reading comprehension.

That will never change Lusche.  They purposely miss the point hoping for a cookie from HT  .  It is a bad idea to split the arenas but until it is their idea to put them back together, you will get flamed for bringing it up.  Limiting the size of the cesspool is hardly a reason.  If anything, they owe an apology to their customers for referring to them as that.  Good luck lol.

[RTHolmes]

If your favorite restaurant closed the dining room between 4 and 5 pm to prepare the dining room for the evening rush, and you were served at the bar because your "lunch" break was at 4:00 would you come into the restaurant and loudly proclaim you are being treated like a used kleenex because you weren't allowed to sit in the dining room?

I think the analogy is closer to this:

a restaurant with a rep for an excellent menu has 2 evening sittings. in the first sitting, the chefs try to serve the same menu, but only use indredients they have an excess of. this means the menu is smaller and the dishes dont taste anywhere as good as the dishes served in the later sitting because there are key ingredients missing from them. it does however mean that they can serve the full menu in the 2nd sitting.

customers who can only eat at the first sitting are getting a worse meal than those who can eat later, despite the fact that the restaurant is capable of serving great dishes so are understandably not that happy with their meal or the restaurant. the customers who eat at the later sitting hear the complaints of the others and say "rubbish! my meal was great! theres no problem with this restaurant."

early customers complain to the the chef that their meal isnt as good as the later sitting, the chef says "well if the early sitting was fully booked, we could order more ingredients and eveyone would get a great meal." the early customers reply "well how do you expect to fill the early sitting when the food isnt as good as the later sitting?"


edit: I still back multiple arenas, with fixed map-dependent caps. let us chose where to fly.

[Shuffler]

You can't get in because you really don't want to. Lot of room to play.

[CHAPPY]

You have to remember which state HTC is located. Should sum up some of the confusion.

[Qrsu]

Z e d

[BigR]

Arena CAP's are great for business as HTC has stated many times already and that's all that matters.

You're right. They should just bow to the whims of every single player's wishes, and not care about the impact that has on their income stream. They will be a lot more successful that way. They shouldn't care about making money or keeping their business going in the worst economy since the great depression. They should sacrifice the measured gains that they obviously have seen from arena caps, and totally get rid of them to make a very small minority of the players happy. Makes total sense. (Think about it...if arena caps were driving people away, they would have nixed them a long time ago.)

[Foz]

... the worst economy since the great depression.

Hardly..

Do you remember the 10%+ unemployment rates, 18% mortgage rates, 20% prime rates and the 14% inflation rates in the early 80's?

[Lusche]

It doesn't occur to anybody that things that did work in the past maybe just do not work the same way any more when the conditions have changed?

When the current system of caps were introduced, we had a lot more players logged in at any given time.  Current numbers on the login screen are about the lowest I have ever seen in playing AH for 5 years now. (Maybe it's still the same at US prime time) This week they are about half the numbers I once was used to see on the clipboard - when once the lowest numbers were about 100 players, it's now down to like 56, in the evening just before arena caps kick in 120 instead of ~200.

But still, the LW arena is split at 19:00 euro time, and we barely can get over 100 players in an arena. Right now it's 22:30 here, and we have 119 and 104 players in LWO and LWB.
This is a shadow of the MMO game I once signed up to. We still could have 200+ in the arena, which indeed is much more fun, but still we are split.

So with considerable lesser overall numbers, the early caps are much more frustrating for us euro time players than ever before. The (negative) impact of caps is greater than it used to be.

Maybe at US prime time the number still justify the split at that time, but us "very small minority" (which ain't that small) are paying a big price for that.

[dedalos]

It doesn't occur to anybody that things that did work in the past maybe just do not work the same way any more when the conditions have changed?

When the current system of caps were introduced, we had a lot more players logged in at any given time.  Current numbers on the login screen are about the lowest I have ever seen in playing AH for 5 years now. (Maybe it's still the same at US prime time) This week they are about half the numbers I once was used to see on the clipboard - when once the lowest numbers were about 100 players, it's now down to like 56, in the evening just before arena caps kick in 120 instead of ~200.

But still, the LW arena is split at 19:00 euro time, and we barely can get over 100 players in an arena. Right now it's 22:30 here, and we have 119 and 104 players in LWO and LWB.
This is a shadow of the MMO game I once signed up to. We still could have 200+ in the arena, which indeed is much more fun, but still we are split.

So with considerable lesser overall numbers, the early caps are much more frustrating for us euro time players than ever before. The (negative) impact of caps is greater than it used to be.

Maybe at US prime time the number still justify the split at that time, but us "very small minority" (which ain't that small) are paying a big price for that.

Weren't you one of the guys defending the arena splits?

[Babalonian]

I suppose you never play at euro primetime



It's a massive problem to us.

West coast eats it in the !@#s too, I feel sorry for you Euro guys and anyone else that has to wait more than 30-minutes to get into the arena you want to (if it was only 3-minutes, I'd be happy.  sometimes you're lucky and the wait is 3-minutes, but just as often I can end up waiting over 30-minutes for the other arena to populate enough or, more common in my time zone, the arenas start to rapidly depopulate to below the cap due to the east-coasters going to bed).  

Try getting into the arena you want to get into with your squadmates right on the cusp of prime time (in my case, after commuting home from work three hours after 75% of this country beats you to it).  I've just about given up trying to play the game before 8-9pm my time (11pm-12am on the east coast) if there is a cap discrepancy greater than 20 players.

I've never advocated getting rid of an arena balancing system, it keeps the second arena fat and healthy, but there has to be a better way for a customer to come home after work and be able to log into the same arena as the rest of your squadies and buds... I'd love a que, doesnt have to let me know where I'm at or about how long until I probabley will get in.  Still some frustration to be had at no instant-access, but delayed-promised-access beats delayed-stonewalled-access anyday, especially since as it is after stepping away to wait for the caps to settle, you can often return to find no difference/change or that both servers lowered caps (but with still no access) due to even server depopulation across the board.  I don't mind waiting 20 minutes every day as long as I know I'll be in roughly around that time after waiting my turn.  My favorite weekday to play is Tuesday without a doubt, the fights are big, the arena popular, and no caps.

[Lusche]

Weren't you one of the guys defending the arena splits?

No, I was not.

Actually I kinda clashed with HiTech over it. And I never hid my aversion against them. I came somewhat to terms with them, as long as the numbers weren't that bad as they are now.

What I did was explaining defending the technical way the caps were implemented (both arena's caps depending on each other), mostly vs players with proposals that had not been thought through very well.

[SPKmes]

I have to agree with Lusche (and the other Euros')...this one particular arena caps time needs to be extended by a minimum of (IMO) 1hour...2 if possible....this will allow the Euro guys the same (to a degree..still a lot less people and better fights ) fights and map movement as in American prime time.
 One of the problems here is some of you say just wait 5 mins it will change...at the time in question this does not happen..there is just not the flow of players..so your 5 mins during your caps time is more like 30mins minimum at this time. It has taken 1hr before.. I have and do up in the lower populated arena during this time...and usually spend 30 mins (Darbar chasing)looking to find something to engage but find little and/or nothing willing...and spend the rest of the time rolling an osti/t34/bomber to a town to roll around uncontested.
Extending this time will see it kick in at a time where there is more player login thus more flow and quicker change times..sure this doesn't allow for the other complaints of not being able to get in with squaddies but that is a different issue to the one one lucshe and the other Euro guys are talking about...We would love nothing better than to have caps enforced when the numbers are up near 150 - 200 in both arenas...

edit (IMO)

[dedalos]

No, I was not.

Actually I kinda clashed with HiTech over it. And I never hid my aversion against them. I came somewhat to terms with them, as long as the numbers weren't that bad as they are now.

What I did was explaining defending the technical way the caps were implemented (both arena's caps depending on each other), mostly vs players with proposals that had not been thought through very well.

So, I do agree with you.  I don;t like the limits for my own reasons but what would you propose?  Other than removing them, I don;t see an easy fix.  If you let it go up to 200 before they kick in the people having to log in to the other arena will be complaining about a 200 to 10 ratio.  I don;t see how it can be improved.  Ideas?

[Lusche]

So, I do agree with you.  I don;t like the limits for my own reasons but what would you propose?  Other than removing them, I don;t see an easy fix.  If you let it go up to 200 before they kick in the people having to log in to the other arena will be complaining about a 200 to 10 ratio.  I don;t see how it can be improved.  Ideas?

For example http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,292342.0.html , because I agree that simply moving the caps 1-2 hours later won't work at all.