It's becoming more and more common to see one nation having to compete against three.
Historically speaking, ENY has been the standard regulator of high end tools available to a given country or countries that outnumber another. When numbers are below one hundred on all sides ENY seems to work just fine. But when all sides are well over one hundred ENY starts to put the blinders on, especially when it concerns where the fighting is actually happening.
For example, let's say that Nation A might have 210 players on. Nation B has 184 and Nation C has 140. These numbers are very realistic lately and yet this will trigger an ENY of below 10, for sure, and maybe even below 5. Now, this might be sustainable, at least concerning balance, provided that all three nations are engaged with one another. But this is not always the case.
The Trinity map is notorious for two front fighting for several reasons that are obvious. For this discussion, there's no reason that Nation C should be fighting A and B with such few numbers. Nation C's 140 people end up roughly 70 players per front while taking on Nation A's 210 and Nation B's 184. This equals a 3-1 advantaqe for the most populated side which is probably still upping 262's and any other high end aircraft. Better than a 2-1 advantage exists for Nation B and these numbers or circumstances really don't fall into any definition of balance that I've ever heard of.
Some serious thought needs to go into fixing this kind of periodic lopsidedness that's pretty common, especially during the peak times of roughly 7p to 11p CT and pretty much all weekend long.
Could the sensitivity of ENY not be modified in order to address high populations better than right now? Presently it's essentially non-existent. I'm no fan of ENY in general but imbalanced three nation battle probably requires.
Better yet, a front based ENY would be the better solution. In other words, if one nation wants to dog pile another then they'll have to do it in early war aircraft. In this case, simply attacking the other enemy who's numbers compare to yours puts you back in the tools you want.
The latter seems like a stretch but the former seems the easiest. Nonetheless, circumstances like the photos included need to stop. There's just no reason for it. No nation should be fighting more than two-thirds of the population.
dalllas71