Dear HiTech...

[vafiii]

Would it be possible to extend the off hours arena to include Friday and Saturday nights? When the squad ops or other events begin the main arenas are drained of almost 400 players leaving those of us left in the MA with little to do. Both the Orange and Blue arenas had very little going on last night. My squad mate and I spent a considerable amount of time sitting in the tower looking for a fight. Things picked up once the squad ops ended. This seems to be a common occurrence on Friday and Saturday nights. Thanks for your time.

[Bruv119]

one big weekend arena sounds great,

however what happens to the guys who login at 4am EST through to 4pm EST?   The arena numbers do not get above 200 if your lucky with a bare minimum of 50.  On a big map this is bad news.

I guess the solution would be too move the arena switch for the weekend back a few hours.

[Lusche]

Both the Orange and Blue arenas had very little going on last night.

I was there and I agree.

The current numbers are quite low all across the board. What "we Euros" had to coper with for a long time is now hitting our friends across the pond too: An arena split and caps kicking in when the total number of players is way too low to support "healthy gameplay" on two large maps.
I know the split arenas had been introduced way back because the single arena was (in HTC's assessment) hampering growth. but the MA player numbers ain't growing for years now, and are currently even lower than they had been before the big split.  Having numbers like 70 and 160 players for several hours on large maps isn't exactly fun. The basic conditions on which the split was based have changed.

My suggestion would be to keep the peak- / offhours system, but make it one single, large map peak hours arena. This would leave us with 180-400 players during the week on a large map, which is fine - After the Big Split in 2006 we did have numbers like these in each LW arena...

[grizz441]

To fix the game:

1.  Go back to one arena until numbers grow and taper, then split again
2.  Add more strategy, i.e. strats, factories, cities, with significant war value
    http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,312329.0.html
3.  Keep track of war statistics in game to value this mode of game play

That'll be a good start.

[Devil 505]

I think what the OP is saying is that he wants the "off-peak" arena to be up when FSO is running. Moving up the switch from 1AM EST to 11PM.

+1 

[Blagard]

Yes please!

Big arena with few players - no action - no fun. Boring! - I will simply log off

Small arena with few players - some action - worth a try

Small arena with good numbers on line - plenty of action - Lots of fun.

I am not suggesting we should use just small Arena's. I am trying to illustrate that action is what I want and this means having plenty of people in an Arena, Big or Small.  If you spread players too thin, sooner or later they may lose interest - well at least I do - but I come back later  .

HTC have the tough job of getting the balance right for everyone, whatever their reasons are for playing, but I do think it needs looking at because it seems to me I don't find the fights as much as I used to.

[prowl3r]

To fix the game:

1.  Go back to one arena until numbers grow and taper, then split again
2.  Add more strategy, i.e. strats, factories, cities, with significant war value
    http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,312329.0.html
3.  Keep track of war statistics in game to value this mode of game play

That'll be a good start.

+1

[68ZooM]

I think what the OP is saying is that he wants the "off-peak" arena to be up when FSO is running. Moving up the switch from 1AM EST to 11PM.

+1 

 

change it like that then 11 EST is 8 pm PST on the west coast , close the arenas at 8pm west coast time for off hours arnea?  are you nuts, thats prime time for westcoast players

[Devil 505]

 

change it like that then 11 EST is 8 pm PST on the west coast , close the arenas at 8pm west coast time for off hours arnea?  are you nuts, thats prime time for westcoast players

I meant just on FSO nights.


Not that it matters much to me, I live on the east coast and fly FSO. 

[jamdive]

Strats having more value is a good idea. Why are they all in one area anyway? Never made much sense to me. It's as the saying goes, putting all your eggs in one basket.

[DREDIOCK]

To fix the game:

1.  Go back to one arena until numbers grow and taper, then split again
2.  Add more strategy, i.e. strats, factories, cities, with significant war value
    http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,312329.0.html
3.  Keep track of war statistics in game to value this mode of game play

That'll be a good start.

Agree wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm on 1 and 2.
Dont care one way or the other on 3

Fights are getting harder to come by. the other night I logged on and couldnt find a single fight that was worth participating in in either arena.  Even if I switched sides. there just wasnt much there worth doing.
Im finding myself logging off more and more often. Not because of lack of interest, or desire. But lack of any decent fights or in general anything worth doing.

[DREDIOCK]

Strats having more value is a good idea. Why are they all in one area anyway? Never made much sense to me. It's as the saying goes, putting all your eggs in one basket.

Problem with strats is they currently have no value other then to get more bomber perks and to improve bomber ranking. but if you look at what most frequently and consistently get bombed by bombers. Its not the strat targets. Its the things that have a direct impact. FH's VH's, ammo and then towns.

Occasionally you see a run to these wonderfully rendered strat targets. But not very often. I dare venture to say that if people are going ot fly all that way to blow something up. They want it to have an impact on something. Score and perks and just for the hell of it alone just dont cut it.

[STEELE]

Yes please!

Big arena with few players - no action - no fun. Boring! - I will simply log off

Small arena with few players - some action - worth a try

Small arena with good numbers on line - plenty of action - Lots of fun.
I am not suggesting we should use just small Arena's. I am trying to illustrate that action is what I want and this means having plenty of people in an Arena, Big or Small.  If you spread players too thin, sooner or later they may lose interest - well at least I do -

You nailed it! Big arenas with low numbers, you get bored and so do the 2 weekers trying to decide if it's worth it.
Same thing with spreading players too thin: a new player  sees this and is not impressed.  OTOH, if he sees 1 arena with double the players, it's far more impressive, and looks like this game has a big following/player base, so he whips out  his wallet happily, like I did

[Chilli]

First I would like to say thanks to Cactus Cooler for the nice new splash screen.

Whenever I bring up anything in conversation, I have arguements from folks that say that numbers like those in Titanic Tuesdays causes lag.  Is this speculation or is there real data, and reasoning behind HAVING to split the arenas that has to do with a limit on tolerable numbers versus game play degradation?  My experience shows no difference on my end.

If arena split was done to promote growth alone, one might want to revisit the pros and cons.  Just saying.... I am getting to the point that I still love the game, but I am much more willing to log off, or nod off zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  Then again, I am frequently sleep deprived. 

Keep in mind that the direction in upgrades and game changes, I feel are dead on target as far as I am concerned.  I am just also concerned that average players are just not that willing to fly 15 minutes to get to some online versus action, to be greatly outnumbered (usually by 109K4s, La7s, Spit16s and the occasional F4U-4) where they ultimately go down in flames soon after their first turn. 

For me, I can only hope that there is some thought for considering alternative motivators for game play.

[gyrene81]

you guys talking about the arena sizes and numbers appear to not be looking at a bigger picture. just speaking to the late war arenas, on an "average" night during u.s. prime time the numbers occasionally peak around 500 players between the 2 late war arenas, sometimes more, sometimes less. on titanic tuesdays typically the numbers go between 325 and 375. once in a while it will get to 400 plus.
the high numbers is when the "horde this and horde that" b.s. talk starts happening and, as is obvious by this discussion when the numbers get low, the "can't find a..." talk starts up.
then there are the "change the map" and "this map is boring" b.s. that is ever prevalent regardless of how the arenas are split. some maps are "more fun" than others.

htc has made it fairly obvious the split arenas is not going to change so, the next best fix would be smaller terrains put in place during hours of low populations, even if the "off hours" times are changed, with the big terrains being used it won't change the way things play out especially during off peak hours. rather than butting heads with hitech to get the arena caps dropped among other gripes, why not petition for smaller terrains to be made and put into the rotation for off peak hours? just dropping the size of the existing terrains by 1/3 should be an improvement, 1/2 would probably be stretching things a bit.