ENY - and why it is bad for the game

[Karnak]

2. Enable a zone ENY system. So player A could still log on and fly with his squad but it would encourage him to fly away from the friendlies if he wants to fly something late war. Alternatively, if player B wanted to fly with his horde he would not be able to fly a late war plane, and if the horde is bad enough it will prevent low ENY aircraft even though their country is outnumbered. This will also have the added bonus of affecting large missions and make them less popular.

This would not work to limit things like P-51Ds being used by the side with numbers where the fighting is concentrated, but it would make people more timid with their P-51Ds, or other low ENY rides, than they already are.

As evidence I submit a Combat Theater setting from many years ago.  It was supposed to represent the end of 1942 in the Pacific, so the guys who set it up wanted the F4U to be available in limited numbers.  So they only made the F4U available at  the base furthest from the Japanese with the intention being that most of the fighting would be A6M2s vs F4F-4s.  What actually happened is that most Allied players chose to fly the long distance down in F4Us rather than use the readily available F4Fs.  It was so bad that the F4U had to be removed from the scenario.

The same would happen in the MA.

[Oldman731]

As evidence I submit a Combat Theater setting from many years ago.  It was supposed to represent the end of 1942 in the Pacific, so the guys who set it up wanted the F4U to be available in limited numbers.  So they only made the F4U available at  the base furthest from the Japanese with the intention being that most of the fighting would be A6M2s vs F4F-4s.  What actually happened is that most Allied players chose to fly the long distance down in F4Us rather than use the readily available F4Fs.

Heh.  I remember that. 

A large portion of AH people will pay virtually any price to have what they consider to be either their favorite, or the superior, plane.  In AvA we saw that all the time; you could have a D-Day setup, or a Bulge setup, whatever, and if any Spitfire were enabled, everyone on the Allied side would fly Spitfires.  As at least one of the posters in this thread has already remarked, there are plenty of people who will willingly pay perk prices to fly, for example, P-51Ds.  The perk penalty would not solve the imbalance problem.

- oldman

[Bruv119]

I commend HT's unselfishness in not making a pay for your favourite ride environment.   He would be much richer as a result of it.   

[1stpar3]

Bruv!!! Thank (in a sarcastic but joking usage. Now hitech has that idea in his head. lol

[Randy1]

What about going a different direction?  Ease the eny restrictions but greatly increase equation that calculates the perk rewards for a higher eny plane killing a 10 and below plane while greatly reducing perk rewards for kills using a low eny plane.

[Lusche]

What about going a different direction?  Ease the eny restrictions but greatly increase equation that calculates the perk rewards for a higher eny plane killing a 10 and below plane while greatly reducing perk rewards for kills using a low eny plane.

That would not really limit or balance anything, players (by large), would still take the 'better' ride. You already get 36 times more perks for killing a Spit 16 in a 109F than for doing the opposite.
Players who happily bail after dropping bombs or suicide their fighter into a single radar tower for maximum 'efficiency' in the war game don't give a damn about score or their own perk gains.
The carrot has it's limits, sometimes it's gotta be the stick

[Vinkman]

ENY solves nothing....


..but it does create a lot of grief.

It's just a whine generator.  It should be removed from the game. 

[Lusche]

ENY solves nothing....


..but it does create a lot of grief.

It's just a whine generator.  It should be removed from the game. 

So you are willing to trade relatively few whines against a lot more whines?

[bustr]

Heh.  I remember that. 

A large portion of AH people will pay virtually any price to have what they consider to be either their favorite, or the superior, plane.  In AvA we saw that all the time; you could have a D-Day setup, or a Bulge setup, whatever, and if any Spitfire were enabled, everyone on the Allied side would fly Spitfires.  As at least one of the posters in this thread has already remarked, there are plenty of people who will willingly pay perk prices to fly, for example, P-51Ds.  The perk penalty would not solve the imbalance problem.

- oldman

When Waystin was an AvA CM he would promise one night of his piggies to shoot at for numbers in the AvA each week. He would require us piggies to fly the crap planes with him. With a few exceptions "Everyone" flew the other side with the uber rides. The AvA teaches you a lot about the WW2 aviation arms race in a very personal manner. The challenge grew stale after the uber riders change to HO and zooming because it didn't turn out as easy to mow down a herd of piggy vets in garbage rides. Around the time at the end of the evening Waystin would cut us loose to fly the uber rides, the AvA became a cricket farm. We piggies were a tiny bit teed off by that point from bending over and taking it for the team to try and get numbers into the AvA. Most people are stick swingers, not pain lovers.

No one wants to be a whipping boy, especially having to pay for the privilege. The current most used strategy in this generation of the MA to avoid the whipping is speed, power, and HOing vs. turning ability from the AH1 days. Or the muppet school of ACM during that MA generation. I kind of miss them now along with the original Devil's Brigade who we all renamed the vTards.

ENY or No ENY, the situational "whipped boys" will complain about their $14.95 being wasted by Hitech just like the OP started this post to defend his anti-whipped boy solution from ENY.

No one likes loosing.

[Randy1]

That would not really limit or balance anything, players (by large), would still take the 'better' ride. You already get 36 times more perks for killing a Spit 16 in a 109F than for doing the opposite.
Players who happily bail after dropping bombs or suicide their fighter into a single radar tower for maximum 'efficiency' in the war game don't give a damn about score or their own perk gains.
The carrot has it's limits, sometimes it's gotta be the stick

Good point Lusche. 

Maybe super high perks for the kill of eny restricted plane.  Make it so high it is worth hunting down planes like a P-51D when the they are eny restricted.  Kind of like bounty hunters.  You would know when perk levels are high enough when 200 and PMs start thinking restricted plane flyers for all the perks.  Maybe a fixed, add on bonus for killing an eny restricted plane.  It has to be high enough to make it doggone irritating to give so many perks.

I support the eny system but there must be a way to give the P-51D boys and girls what they want. 

[pembquist]

Last night at 1am PST I saw cause for legitimate eny complaint. Population was something like 6 5 2 and being 2 I flew a tempest as skeet over a vbase while people plinked at me with m16s. With those numbers I would argue that it wouldn't really matter if everyone had access to the whole hanger. Instead you have guys who are on late at night that just want to fly a typhoon and jabo an empty base in an empty country and they can't unless they switch sides and then, what do you know, they have to switch again and cannot. I would argue that once you get below some critical number of players the things that work, and well mind you, with a decent population can become detrimental to the appeal of playing at all. For example, the HQ snafu I would say is/was exacerbated to an insufferable degree by low population. Given the tweaking the Hitech has done to make the gameplay better,(the reason there is eny in the first place,) I don't think that the eny system is as rigid as it is because of doctrine but probably because it wasn't that important to cater to low pop time players given the effort it would take.

[Ack-Ack]

I just don't grasp why someone would insist on always flying one particular plane, all the time, when we have so many nice ones to choose from.

- oldman

Maybe one finds one particular plane more enjoyable to fly over the rest of the plane set.  One doesn't have to fly every single plane in the MA to have fun, just like people shouldn't really concern themselves what other players fly.

ack-ack

[Yankee67]

Maybe I missed it among the comments in this thread, but wouldn't simply switching sides to the low-number country put you in the seat of the ride you want?  It seems like a reasonable alternative.

Contrast that with doing away with ENY:  providing one country the ability to pound the low-number country 24 on 8 (numbers like that happen every single day) in low ENY rides.  That doesn't seem like a reasonable gaming scenario for all involved to me.  At least not one worth paying for.

I say the ENY system as it stands today produces as reasonable a gaming experience as it can, for all involved, given the way the game is set up.  Don't touch it.       

[Randy1]

Yankee, the problem is the wide variety of players in AH.  Some like only on plane.  Some like only one country. Some, it doesn't matter.  The trick is to keep the max number of people as happy as you can.  That is a very, very tough job.

[Yankee67]

I know this is a shallow response, but if you're devoted to one low-ENY plane, then move over to a country where you can fly it if ENY rears its head.  If you're devoted to one chess piece, then deal with the ENY when your numerical advantage cranks up.  Having both (low ENY rides, plus a numerical advantage) doesn't seem like the answer.  My advice would be to pick the one thing that's most fun or important to you, and give on the other.