Author Topic: Off Hours Arena Suggestion  (Read 3011 times)

Offline wil3ur

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Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« on: November 28, 2010, 12:57:39 PM »
Well, for the past week the horde flyers have had their wish and the arenas have been consolidated.  For the past 3 years I've played, I've almost exclusively stayed to the blue arena due to less numbers, and better fights due to less hording.  There was always the orange arena for the massive vulchfest 50 people caping with no intention of taking a base, then there was blue arena for those who would actually want to play the game somewhat.  With this off hours, it's done nothing for the actual player who is out for a decent fight with decent numbers, and has just added more targets for the people who want nothing more than cheap kills and their names in lights.

Since the change has happened, off hours has been nothing but one huge gang on bishland.  You can say I'm 'whining' or you can look at the map at any given moment during off hours and see every base on the bish front blinking, and not a single knight/rook base doing it.  Squads switch between knights and rooks to ensure ENY remains low to non-existant, and everything gets pushed back to a nice little corner where if we want to fly, it has to be from a caped airfield getting vulched by tempests and 262s.

To solve this, I propose that off hours arena be a 2 country arena.  This will either do 1 of two things, cause #'s to even out and actually get a good fight going on or, cause all the horde flyers to be on a single country and actually get the ENY penalty for stacking #'s.
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Offline TinmanX

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2010, 01:06:18 PM »
Side balancing would be far harder with 2 sides than it ever was with 3. With only one set of bad guys to attack it will become the horde Vs horde you want to avoid.
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Offline Raptor03

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2010, 01:09:54 PM »
wil3ur, i totally agree this new arena crap has just made the game extremely crappy in the off-hours. i cant even up with-out being vulched by a 262 and there isnt even eny enforced on rooks or nits which completely imbalances the game. something needs to be done about this... cause it is getting severely more annoying by the day.

But i do agree with cheech as well, but really something needs to be done about the hording against bish.

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Offline Lusche

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2010, 01:12:04 PM »
You can say I'm 'whining' or you can look at the map at any given moment during off hours and see every base on the bish front blinking, and not a single knight/rook base doing it.  Squads switch between knights and rooks to ensure ENY remains low to non-existant

I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that...  
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Offline wil3ur

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2010, 01:16:07 PM »

I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that... 


pad those post numbers...  don't try and add to the discussion though.
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Offline The Fugitive

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2010, 01:29:28 PM »
You can say I'm 'whining' or you can look at the map at any given moment during off hours and see every base on the bish front blinking, and not a single knight/rook base doing it.  Squads switch between knights and rooks to ensure ENY remains low to non-existant

I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that...  


I can see what he's saying, that statement is about the most parinoid comment I've ever read.

Do you really think there are people on the Rooks and KNights that take the time to figure out and then adjust by switching side so keep the ENY balanced?

Personally I've oly been in the Non-peek arena once and it was only for a bit. I didn't see any issues with it, but again I was only there for a bit. I've heard a lot more positive messages about the arena changes than I have negative.

Offline Crash Orange

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2010, 01:39:40 PM »
I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that...  

What's not to comment on? The ENY system is designed around the notion that three sides will be fighting each other. if two sides gang up on a third it breaks down hopelessly. For example, normally, if you had 40 rooks vs. 30 bish vs. 20 nits, the rooks would have a high ENY; if 10 of them switch to nits, the ENY goes away but now you have equal numbers fighting each other. However, if it's 40 rooks and 20 nits all ganging 30 bish, 10 rooks can switch to nits and get rid of ENY while still having 2-1 odds all across the map.

And 2-1 across the map is even worse than it sounds, because having those numbers and flying in hordes on a small map means it's easy to beat down resistance and cap fields, so the "fighting" becomes a giant across-the-map vulchfest. Of course experienced players and squads will fly in from other fields or otherwise avoid getting vulched over and over, but that's a minority of players, and it becomes a steep uphill fight against odds, which gets old after several nights.

The worst night for this recently was Thursday; at one point there were 80 nits and rooks ganging up on 30 bish with no ENY (or ENY under 5, which is the same thing) and not one single flashing base or dar bar on the whole rook-nit front. That's just ridiculous. If we're going to have ENY, then there's no excuse for having 2.67:1 odds with no ENY.

Another aspect of this problem is that even though it theoretically evens out over time, each side getting it's turn "in the barrel," the problem is, that assumes that having 2-1 odds on your own side is as fun as being outnumbered 2-1 is unfun, which I do not find to be true.

ENY is very, very broken because of this central conceptual flaw, the built-in assumption that all three sides will fight each other.

Offline Crash Orange

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2010, 01:42:16 PM »
Do you really think there are people on the Rooks and KNights that take the time to figure out and then adjust by switching side so keep the ENY balanced?

Think it? No. KNOW it? Absolutely!

Are you claiming that no one ever switches sides due to ENY? Isn't that the whole point of having ENY?

Offline LLogann

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2010, 01:51:04 PM »
Tell you one thing about OffPeak right now..........

SFMA is totally unbalanced.  NE has the best land, followed by NW.......  The South land has no base above 2.1k while NE land has a 6.7k & 8.5k.  Being positioned in the south right now it certainly adds to your dilemma wil3ur.  To compound this... Since the uncap bases have left and it's OldSkool, the country of the South is the only one to attack on the map, hence the ganging against us. 


You can create a piechart showing what I am talking about.   :D 
I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that... 
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Offline Lusche

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2010, 02:14:38 PM »
What's not to comment on?

I should seriously comment on that totally paranoid BS? Squads switching only between Knits and Rooks? The great anti-bish conspiracy?

Or the blatant nonsense that Rooks and Knits do never fight each other? How did Rooks win the war without "making nit bases flash"

I was flying on all three countries yesterday and read about

- a Rook-Bish alliance
- a Knight-Rook peace treaty
- a totally absence of Bish-Knight fights, "as ususual."

 I was flying Bish for hours. I switched back when Rooks started to roll all over Knightland. I must have hallucinated that and the arena reset by a won war. The big Rook-Knight battle a few hours ago up north on sfma was probably also just imagination.



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Offline Wobbly

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2010, 02:35:53 PM »
As a euro I like the new set up but having off hours arena at the weekend with 300+ in is clearly not "off hours", weekends from say 12.00 noon US time need split arenas and during the weekday arenas need to be split earlier than whatever time US it is done now.
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Offline Crash Orange

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #11 on: November 28, 2010, 02:38:53 PM »
I should seriously comment on that totally paranoid BS? Squads switching only between Knits and Rooks? The great anti-bish conspiracy?

No one said anything about a conspiracy. No conspiracy is necessary, just a general human tendency to follow the path of least resistance.

Or the blatant nonsense that Rooks and Knits do never fight each other?

No one said they NEVER fight each other. There is no long-term conspiracy against any side. But there are periods, whole evenings, and sometimes several days on end where two sides in one arena gang up on a third and there is zero dar on one of the three fronts for most of the time. This is neither paranoia or conspiracy theory, it's observed fact.

Offline Lusche

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #12 on: November 28, 2010, 02:40:41 PM »
No one said they NEVER fight each other. There is no long-term conspiracy against any side. But there are periods, whole evenings, and sometimes several days on end where two sides in one arena gang up on a third and there is zero dar on one of the three fronts for most of the time. This is neither paranoia or conspiracy theory, it's observed fact.

If I had said that, I would have agreed. but:


Quote
you can look at the map at any given moment during off hours and see every base on the bish front blinking, and not a single knight/rook base doing it

Is something totally different, and completely untrue.



« Last Edit: November 28, 2010, 02:44:47 PM by Lusche »
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Offline Lusche

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #13 on: November 28, 2010, 02:48:54 PM »
As a euro I like the new set up but having off hours arena at the weekend with 300+ in is clearly not "off hours", weekends from say 12.00 noon US time need split arenas and during the weekday arenas need to be split earlier than whatever time US it is done now.

It's very reasonable to move the sülit time up for a few hours on weekends, when population levels are quite different from working days.
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Offline rvflyer

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Re: Off Hours Arena Suggestion
« Reply #14 on: November 28, 2010, 02:57:10 PM »
I don't even know how to give a serious comment on that... 


While I have defended HT for years about the changes they have made for better or worse this one does really suck. HT has as finelly caved to Lusche.
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