I still really like the new towns, much more so than the old ones. I do not as a rule, have any difficulty recognizing when town is down. I doubt however, that my old tired eyes are any better than others and wonder that monitor resolution (1024x768 for me) is playing a part in it. In FSO the squad has taken to calling me Eagle Eyes because I can generally discern dots well ahead of the rest of them. I do not have great eyes. I wonder that 1080p monitors or the like, are making it more difficult for the majority of people to discern whether town is down. Give me 60 seconds unmolested though, and I can generally quickly tell whether town is down. I recognize that a lot more are having difficulty.
1) There is no doubt that a 'couple' of buildings could stand to be changed. The small cream colored near center of town 'Claim Jumpers Clubhouse' is one for sure, and likely several others. They are generally the last to go down and often go missed.
2) The large cluster of town center buildings have brought forth the score tards in numbers. Way too often we can arrive at a base only to find these down, the clock ticking, and a busted attempt in progress. Watched a dot on dar recently, upped to defend, lone typhie comes in drops dead center and runs for the hills at full bore gallop ... we don't want to mention the 20, 30, 40,000 point Lanc landings we see lately. Countrymen WTG the dude, not realizing how difficult said individual has made it for them.
3) It was suggested from the get go with the new towns that upping down time from 45 to 60 minutes would be good, and I would be happy to try it out, and it may do something to alleviate Item 2. Maybe.
4) It's been suggested different sized towns with diff size bases and I expect that this will be a lot of work for the designers. I imagine all terrains would need adjusting as well. Perhaps over the long haul, but not as an immediate fix.
I like the idea of no ack in town, as we had it the first few days after the new town update. It's frustrating to roll a GV and get turreted or tracked by something you can't easily see at all. Almost not worth the bother as you are dependent to an extent on the flyboys de-acking for you using ord they could better expend elsewhere and consequently slowing the whole thing down.
I am not in favor of any up and down the flag pole thingey. How do you spell 'gamey'.