2 sided war arena

[FBKampfer]

I'd say just make ENY appallingly draconian. Set it as an exponential function of the percentage of people you have over the lowest numbered side. 1% numbers advantage gives 1 ENY. 2 gives 4 ENY. A mere 3% more players? No more P-51's, no spixteens, no typhoons, no La-7's. By a mere 5% advantage in numbers, you're limited to ENY 30+ aircraft, since I don't believe we have any aircraft at ENY 26, or 29 or anything. By even 6.3% advantage, you're stuck flying 110C as your best fighter bomber.


The beauty of it is that having more numbers puts you at a disadvantage. This would rather emphatically encourage people to change sides to balance the numbers.

Additionally, have the perk multiplier increase by a similarly exponential function 1+x^2, where x = largest country population percentage in terms of the smallest country population percentage, minus 100.



The overall goal being to encourage side switching as strongly as possible, rather than to balance the fight despite a numbers disparity.

[Lusche]

The beauty of it is that having more numbers puts you at a disadvantage. This would rather emphatically encourage people to change sides to balance the numbers.

This will not work.

The majority of players is side loyal, at least over the medium run. At best, the may switch every few months along with their whole squad. They want to fight/win with those familiar names they see on every day. If the limit gets too crippling, they'd rather log off.
In contrast, the number of players willing to switch in a heartbeat is very limited. And those don't need an incentive that large - actually what holds those few back now is the 12 limit, and not a bigger carrot.

That's also why a strict autobalancing with 2 sides won't work, because that would mean tearing whole squads and teams apart.

[Skyyr]

Make it five countries and split them up by nationality, where British planes are only available to Great Britain, American planes are only available to the US, and so forth. Lend-lease aircraft are available to all countries that flew them, regardless of where they originated from.

It works quite well in most other games that use this setup (before anyone throws it out there, Axis vs. Allies is not the same as all countries vs all others).

Combined with smaller maps, you'd have instant action.

[FBKampfer]

Perhaps, as a solution to the ultra squad's, which I suspect are a big reason for County loyalty, we could cap the number of players on channel, as well as the nominal squad size.

Smaller groups would likely be more mobile in their choice of country, since they don't have that bond of we're a "squad" to tie them together. Unless people get a lot more emotionally attached to the chess piece itself than I figured, there has to be a way to facilitate voluntary number balancing.

Whether or not we have the best system in place, I don't know. But we certainly don't have a good system in place. Perhaps there is no truly good system when dealing with rival group dynamics. But I figure there has to be something worth trying.


Perhaps rework ENY with the current countries. .5x^2, or even .3x^2  for ENY might work effectively to help balance the fight. But I refuse to believe that theres nothing else we should be trying.

[glzsqd]

Make it five countries and split them up by nationality, where British planes are only available to Great Britain, American planes are only available to the US, and so forth. Lend-lease aircraft are available to all countries that flew them, regardless of where they originated from.

It works quite well in most other games that use this setup (before anyone throws it out there, Axis vs. Allies is not the same as all countries vs all others).

Combined with smaller maps, you'd have instant action.

+1

Although the plane line ups would have to be balanced. I could see the US team simply bombing everything.

[Skyyr]

+1

Although the plane line ups would have to be balanced. I could see the US team simply bombing everything.

Generally speaking, US planes are not as effective fighter vs fighter at the altitudes most commonly fought at in the MA, so it balances out.

[Lusche]

Make it five countries and split them up by nationality, where British planes are only available to Great Britain, American planes are only available to the US, and so forth. Lend-lease aircraft are available to all countries that flew them, regardless of where they originated from.

Team America would been ENY'd to hell, just for the available bombr selection alone.
Team Japan would have no GV, and a abysmal selection of bombers. Also about nothing to hunt team America's strat raiders at 30k+

A setup like this doesn't work in the "win the war" MA environment. In scenarios the national based setup only works because of a carefully balanced setup with strict rules and special victory conditions and under GM control.

[JimmyD3]

You guys are still missing the point. The idea of "finding action" means different things to different people.

1. The Fights, those that are looking for air to air combat, anywhere anytime.

2. The Strategist, those looking at the entire map and planning efforts to win the map

3. The GVers, those looking for GV fights, anywhere anytime.

4. The Tacticians, those looking to setup missions.

5. The Loyalist, those doing what ever it takes to defend their "country" and help it win the map.

6. The Developers, those making maps, aircraft and gv skins, and sound packages.

All of these are part of what AH is about and is "action". Over the years this is what it has evolved to, and I think its pretty good. Do we need changes made? Maybe, but they should be done carefully, NOT a whole scale overhaul. Besides that this is not our decision to make, this is Hitechs living we are talking about, and those that work for him. I think they have done a pretty good job so far, and I believe that with the release of AH III we will see another major evolution of AH to an even better game.

So keep dreaming but be patient, and realistic.

[Skyyr]

Team America would been ENY'd to hell, just for the available bombr selection alone.
Team Japan would have no GV, and a abysmal selection of bombers. Also about nothing to hunt team America's strat raiders at 30k+

A setup like this doesn't work in the "win the war" MA environment. In scenarios the national based setup only works because of a carefully balanced setup with strict rules and special victory conditions and under GM control.

Let me clarify - with this setup, remove ENY and the 12-hour rule.

This setup worked quite well in Fighter Ace, which had a nearly-identical arrangement to our current MA (minus ENY and the 12-hour rule). There were NEVER (as in, never) side-balancing issues or cases of overpowered planesets, which is one of the reasons I am perplexed as to why side-balancing here is such an issue. However, it becomes obvious that this is due to fact all countries are inherently the same, with no reason to choose one over another aside from personal preference.

Back to the proposal, what happens with a setup like this is that countries end up fighting historical fight scenarios using historical tactics. For example, one of the reasons the LA-7 is so apparently overpowered in our current MA is because it dominates fights down low, while other aircraft (in the MA environment, such as P-51's) can cover it at higher altitudes. By limiting plane choices by country, Russian planes lack fast, high-altitude performers, and the LA is forced into quick-strike type of aircraft. It is more easily controlled by opposing P-51's and F4U's coming in at higher altitudes.

Splitting the planesets balances the country fights quite readily, as serves as its own method of encouraging rotation. It especially encourages side rotation for larger squads, while providing historical arrangements for squads that prefer to be country-specific.

[glzsqd]

American planes biggest advantage is they can carry a payload equal to most other countries medium bombers and still be competitive in fighter vs fighter combat.

[Vraciu]

With these low numbers lately, it's often just a two sided fight - with the third side getting rolled by gusts of tumbleweeds.  With only 2 teams, there would always be action, regardless of numbers.

A few other changes would have to be made for a two sided war to work:

1. ENY has to kick in much sooner, effectively countering the numbers advantage of the more populated side.
2. 1 hour side switching*, enabling crutch plane dependent folks to fly their favorite plane 24/7 and helping to balance the sides.

* also allow unlimited switching to the low numbers side.


Otherwise, everything else would be the same as the LW MA, as opposed to AvA; with their restricted plane sets and lack of icons.

The fronts would be more dynamic.   It was a lot of fun in Warbirds. 

[The Fugitive]

Fighter Ace did so well with this setup that nobody plays there now.   

[Skyyr]

Fighter Ace did so well with this setup that nobody plays there now.   

They had more numbers when they shut down then AH has currently, so it's still a relevant suggestion. That's entirely why I suggested it, as it maintained balance until the end.

[Sabre]

I posted an idea in the Wishlist forum that could be used to help side-balance (I'm in the 3-way MA camp; AvA arena is for 2-sided conflict); Auto Strategic Bombing function.

[glzsqd]

They had more numbers when they shut down then AH has currently, so it's still a relevant suggestion. That's entirely why I suggested it, as it maintained balance until the end.

That's surprising. Do you know what caused FA to shut their doors?