I've been thinking, the fights that were going on last I played were usually quite pitiful creatures. Almost always heavily in favor of one side. The ones that were pretty even were usually involving two massive hordes that just resulted in a stagnating fight.
Now bear with me on this, but perhaps a way we could encourage people to get away from the hordes and into some real fights would be to modify the darbar so that the smaller the group, the more lenient it is with regards to the altitude cap. A single plane (or even a bomber formation) won't set off the darbar until the player climbs above 20k. Up to 3 planes can go to 10k without setting off the darbar. Up to 5 can go to 5k. Up to 8 can fly at 2k, 10 can fly at 750ft. 10-15 players can fly at our current 65 ft without showing a darbar, but 15+ will always show a darbar regardless of altitude. They can still horde all they want, but if they want to horde, they'll have to fight for the field.
Those are just some ballpark numbers I threw out there, they are of course up for adjustment. We would need a trial period and see if we need to adjust the requirements for a map win, or the % of buildings to be destroyed before a base capture. But what this would do is encourage players to use small-unit tactics and take a field by being smarter or sneakier than their opponents (yeah I know, using our brains, scary
). It would also more accurately show a small group's ability to slip past unnoticed, finesse a difficult situation, and reach an objective much more neatly than a larger force, as well as the larger forces' lack of aforementioned abilities.
You can still take a base virtually without a fight (or even without any fight if you're good), you can still choose to shut off your brain and just smash through with brute unthinking force, or you can go somewhere in between. The ONLY change is that you can't both horde and take a base without a fight.
