Side switch times

[pervert]

Apparently its meant to reduce wild swings in numbers between sides, the longer switch time is supposed to act as a damper on side imbalance, I can always find one side hugely outnumbering another online and for periods of a couple of hours, so I guess its a fail either way.

It has failed in that regard imo and damaged the playability of the game from an air combat perspective. The only thing it succeeded in doing was inadvertently easing the great wave of paranoia about side switching and spying, although you still hear at least once when you are online someone talking about spying  although I do miss the constant vox PMs telling me they know what I am doing etc

[scott66]

Hitech, if you change that rule, i promise that you will have one more subscriber. 15$ isnt too much, still...

you're not flying anymore?

[kvuo75]

I realize war guys are nervous about spying but they should be more worried about low numbers making the game boring and their efforts fruitless without meaningful victory.

ahh but they don't care.. go look at early and midwar.

[grizz441]

For those that love to furball and furball only.. as has beeen stated 1000's of times before, there is an entire arena dedicated to just that and it doesn't even have a side switch time limit on it. Why the instant action fighter only guys don't gravitate into there and stop beating their heads against a solid piece of granite, demanding, whining and quitting is beyond me. 

It is ignorant and obtuse of you to relate furballing to the concept of having freedom to change teams. A good fight means that the numbers are reasonably balanced, there is high fidelity air to air combat taking place since this is the "heart of aces high", and there is also a good mix of players trying to capture the bases. This is a very fun atmosphere to play in. It's fun to help guys capture and base and its also fun to defend.

When changes are made around here, they are always extreme changes. For example, the one hour rule was increased by a multiple of 12. Imagine if you went on a diet and cut your calories by one twelfth, you'd starve to death. Another example was below radar, it was changed from below 1k (iirc) to 65 feet, another change by a factor of 16. 

Again I'm not asking for an hour time, or even two, but it would be nice to be able to switch sides twice a day not once. You may be thinking the 12 hour rule allows you to switch twice, but no, not any practical nature. You would have to fly in the morning, switch sides as you log on, and then late at night. Lets chalk it up by saying the 12 hour rule is a switch sides one time a day rule.

Give me a 4 hour switch time and I'll be happy.

[Randy1]

It is for the perks.

Staying logged in doesn't cost them any more than not and there is always the chance their country may win the war.... especially as some of the maps are rolled very quickly. For some "earning" those perks could be a major challenge and these are easy. 

Seems like giving the country perks to all country members online or not would solve that problem of simpler yet, just do away country win perks.  Personally, I don't pay a lot of attention to perk points I guess because I don't use them very often.  if I get the 262 habit, I might change my tune.

[68Raptor]

It is ignorant and obtuse of you to relate furballing to the concept of having freedom to change teams. A good fight means that the numbers are reasonably balanced, there is high fidelity air to air combat taking place since this is the "heart of aces high", and there is also a good mix of players trying to capture the bases. This is a very fun atmosphere to play in. It's fun to help guys capture and base and its also fun to defend.

When changes are made around here, they are always extreme changes. For example, the one hour rule was increased by a multiple of 12. Imagine if you went on a diet and cut your calories by one twelfth, you'd starve to death. Another example was below radar, it was changed from below 1k (iirc) to 65 feet, another change by a factor of 16. 

Again I'm not asking for an hour time, or even two, but it would be nice to be able to switch sides twice a day not once. You may be thinking the 12 hour rule allows you to switch twice, but no, not any practical nature. You would have to fly in the morning, switch sides as you log on, and then late at night. Lets chalk it up by saying the 12 hour rule is a switch sides one time a day rule.

Give me a 4 hour switch time and I'll be happy.

Good points here Grizz441 

Coming from that perspective, I can see your point about the side switch times. 4, 6 or 8 hours would seem a fair amount. If someone did switch when the early US times started getting busy then by the time it's winding their switch time timer would be up.

I don't think this would help the guys that just want the furball fight "right now" during the slower 2am-7am Eastern time though. The numbers can change rapidly during that time. I logged in this morning at 3:30 Eastern. The Knights and Rooks had a 3.3 eny each (total players in the arena was about 50) . Within about 30 minutes or so the Rooks eny went away and Knights had an eny of 13. Within an hour or so the eny for all three sides was gone. That's a a pretty fast swing. Also, during this time I saw bases flashing for all three sides. So there was action for all three countries. Granted it wasn't all air to air but there was action. 
 

[matt]

Hitech, if you change that rule, i promise that you will have one more subscriber. 15$ isnt too much, still...

Ill pay 30 just so u wont come back 

[Delirium]

Eny and side switching are supposed to work together, with eny acting as a deterrent to stay the high numbers side.

I've said that myself a bunch of times. ENY is pretty useless of a tool as it currently stands as those that would be willing to change countries are unable to, mostly due to a desire to fly with squad mates.

Decrease side switch to 3 hours, boost ENY penalties and decrease the percentage needed to cause ENY side disparities. 

[Megalodon]

 

[grizz441]

(Image removed from quote.)

 

It's not a dead horse to me, I've been away from the game for a couple of years and haven't had to really deal with the 12 hour rule.  Let me ask you this though, why must we be so rigid with our interpretation of rules and "the way things are"?  As I brought up before, we have had two different switching systems, arguably on opposite sides of the spectrum.  1 hour and 12 hour.  Why was 1 hour so rigid and accepting for so many years, a full decade or more, and then for whatever reason, they twelve-tuppled it.  And now why do we view the 12 hour rule as a "just the way it is" constraint with no room for compromise?

Again, let me stress this again, The twelve hour rules for all intents and purposes allows you to switch one time a day.  I am asking for a more flexible switching schedule that allows me to switch two times a day, or allows me to switch more loosely during late night.  To any given problem there are multiple solutions, but only one best solution, which optimizes all aspects of the problem.  Is the 12 hour switch the optimized best solution?  Far from it in my opinion. 

Please weigh in Hitech.  I don't think I am asking for anything unreasonable here.  I can objectively admit defeat if you can prove the 12 hour rule is "for the greater good", or more War guys weigh in and explain why a compromised switch time in the 4-8 hour neighborhood is bad for the game or inhibits their way to have fun.  Until then, I will be a nuisance when it comes to this particular issue.  Believe me, I know how to beat a dead horse.

[Lusche]

Why was 1 hour so rigid and accepting for so many years, a full decade or more, and then for whatever reason

1h was implemented during the ~5 years of dual late war arenas. Once that setup was reversed back to single LW (with no caps), it also went back to 12h switch limit.

[grizz441]

1h was implemented during the ~5 years of dual late war arenas. Once that setup was reversed back to single LW (with no caps), it also went back to 12h switch limit.

Thanks for correcting me Lusche, since you are one of the more knowledgeable here of the history of the game, could you provide a more detailed timeline?  

What is a little strange though is, if you are saying that the 1 hour was only a byproduct of the dual late war arena setup, that to me is bass ackwards.  The 12 hour rule with the dual arena makes more sense because you have an additional choice to go to the other arena to find a better fight.  The 12 hour rule stacked on one late war arena further limits freedom.  

[Lusche]

Thanks for correcting me Lusche, since you are one of the more knowledgeable here of the history of the game, could you provide a more detailed timeline?  

Arena Split / 12h -> 1h rule change: Tour 80, September 2006
1.5 LW arenas (peak/offpeak system): Tour 130, November 2010
Back to single LW arena: Tour 137, June 2011
Back to 12h rule: Tour 138, July 2011


I'm not 100% sure if the 1h rule was set immediately with the split arena system or shortly afterwards.


By the way, for a big part of peak (caps) time you could not freely switch between LW arenas. Arena cap often made free movement from LWB to LWO quite difficult.

[grizz441]

Arena Split / 12h -> 1h rule change: Tour 80, September 2006
1.5 LW arenas (peak/offpeak system): Tour 130, November 2010
Back to single LW arena: Tour 137, June 2011
Back to 12h rule: Tour 138, July 2012

What's your take on it?

[Lusche]

What's your take on it?

I personally dislike the 12h very much. I can see reasons for not going back to 1h, but even 4h should do that and could help some of us to actually get some fighter action during offpeak, which can be a very dreadful place to fly in these days. With less than 30 players and a huge map like OZkansas you can be lucky if there is one single battle on the map. "Just start your own" doesn't work in such an environment.

The other point I have: When the stats pages were redone, the country specific parts of it were taken out because "we would like to get rid of the country centric mindset" (free from my memory, can look up the exact quote by Skuzzy if required). The 12h rule however makes gameplay very much country centric in my opinion. Which doesn't have to be bad at all, but then pls bring back country stats and make winning the war actually part of them, with front page features and such