No there are only two ways to do this.
1. HTC institutes rules/rewards/punishments to guide game play toward a more strategic and tactical type of game play where fighting is more important.
2. The players change how they use the resources they have available to them, including player numbers.
I can try to influence #2 by asking these questions and making other suggestions. #1, well that is all up to HTC and company and so is out of my hands. Should they like an idea that pops up, like having game posted missions that when accomplished by using ONLY the number of players allotted for that mission REWARD those players with perks, or harden town buildings by tying the number of players in the dar circle (more players harder, less easier) and other ideas that pop up in these threads I'm good with that too.
The main line of this thread is hopefully to get players who DO read these theads to think about what they are doing. Are they playing toward a better game play trend or are they adding to the "same old same old horde" type of game play? New players like Whiskey2 find protection in a large group and so I'm sure have that as one of the main reasons they like those missions. Also with their limited skill it is much easier to "get things done" with that large group. I'm not looking to do away with those large missions, I would however like to see it be harder for a large group like that to take a base with out hurting those that use smaller groups.
While it may be fun and exciting for newer players to do these big missions soon they too will become bored with them. Flying 2 sectors only to be in the last half of the group to arrive over the target to find everything flattened already and no defenders. 20 minutes of flying around doing nothing.... you can do that off line too. Now if its harder for a big group to take a base your not stopping them from doing it and in a way your "punishing", but it is STILL an option for them. If they still want to run a big mission the extra work for the win can give defenders more time to try and stop them adding both more challenge and more fun for both sides.
The picture Whiskey2 posted shows exactly the issue. 13 ID's are shown making 39 B17's. If they are carrying 1k bombs they have 234,000 lbs of bombs 11,000 for the town (this is with out splash damage figured in), 3k each for FH at a large field another 24,000, 3k for each bomber hanger another 12,000, 3k for the VH, 20 other targets, barrack, fuel and such 20,000. If my math is right, thats 70,000 lbs to flatten a large field and it's town. Giving room for "missing" there are still enough tonnage in that one picture to flatten 2 large fields and their towns. How much you want to bet that mission had a single base as the target.
Personally I can't see why half of those in the mission would think its fun as they won't have anything to drop on. From the other side, the only way to defend against something like that is to have the large numbers of planes flying cap or being in a position to intercept. While its on the easy side to get people together for a mission, it's a bit harder to get a defense force together. The rewards aren't the same and so there is very little to entice people to throw themselves at a gauntlet of buffs like that even if they didn't have cover.
Should they stop these kinds of missions? No because they are some what popular with the new guys. On the other hand there should be a way to counter them. I'm happy to fight against 39 buffs as long as I have a bit of help and a reasonable chance that my team could win. Players that lead these missions can make a difference and change how they guide game play with their missions. The question is do they want to be part of the solution and bring more fun to more players, or do they want to be part of the problem and add to the same old same old?
I understand where you are coming from but I don't think increasing the level of hardness for things in a sector (or anything like that) would be relevant. To me it's the same as my plane is more resilient to enemy fire because there are 6 vs 1.
Chuwie made a fun mission a few months ago that was labeled as a "fun mission". Take up lancs and completely level a vbase. Carpet bombing, he even warned the enemy ahead of time. It cause many laughs when they bombed everything and you had craters in craters in craters, you couldn't really identify anything on the base because it was littered with craters.
Now, that screenshot with all those bombers in it. I agree, that is overkill for a base. In truth, 3 sets of bombers per base is sufficient. But I would truly like to see more diverse gameplay. Where you set up a mission to take a chain of bases. 3+ bases with 1 mission, now THAT would be something to see.
Or to see all those bombers going for strats, and even do a formation type thing with it. That would be cool.
I agree this is a problem and needs to be addressed. But I think we need to approach it cautiously. This is a sandbox with combat tools for a combat simulator. Sandboxes rarely have any sort of linear gameplay limits in them.
I will think more on this and give suggestions when I come up with something.
Thanks for reading,
Respectively,
Tinkles
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