We used to have that, then many adjustments were made to slow down the iconic AH2 base taking NOE hoards which sheltered and gave newbies a chance to learn the game.
Now the terrains have bases and towns on them that spit in the eye of groups while radar is set so low the trees can be heard making bets on who will auger first to feed them. We have hours long stalled fights over feilds that end up promoting all those lame things everyone complains about here in the forums under "game play". With the lower numbers those hours long stalled fights bore people during the general 2 hour prime time window that we get our max population of 100-150 players.
We no longer have the hoard problems the game has evolved to temper since the middle of the 2000's. And we no longer have the numbers some of those evolved mechanisms were introduced to keep the game fair for everyone. So now fast paced is not a term to describe action during prime time. Action was fast paced years ago....
I would suggest a titanic tuesday style once a week testing with a terrain, old or purpose built, with many of those hoard controlling mechanisms dialed way down, radar minimums back to early AH2 to help generate NOE which created activity on both sides. To see how the current smaller community plays with it. In the old days the base captures were faster paced and drew in the fighter players to harass the attackers while the newbies and strategic players played WW2 taking bases. Today newbies get thrown to the wolves while the strategic players beat their heads against the hanger walls and complain here in the forums. And there are not quite as many of the higher talented fighter jocks around as once played with us. I see them more often here in the forums than in the arenas.
I've never seen trying to overwhelm Hitech with complexity for the sake of complexity work. Keeping it simple and reasonable sometimes works.
Its not the game, its the players.
In the old days we had a number of the maps we use now. We had most of the planes we have now. Even before the "heyday" of 600 in the arenas we still had good game play. The reason was those that did play back then played "the right way" for a lack of better way to say it.
In the old days most of the player base wanted combat, ran missions, defended against missions, defended bases in ostys and then eventually wirbles, ran NOE, ran high or medium alt missions with bombers and escorts.
Todays player looks to grab the base with as little opposition as possible, bomb strats for points only to bail as soon as another player shows up to battle them. Players dont run many missions any more, mostly because few join the missions any more. The horde is more likely to roll along with the call going out after a capture"Where to next?" and players grabbing what they want to bomb what they want, of 6 guys bring troops.... or nobody brings troops at all.
All that was in the game years ago is STILL in the game.
In another thread the OP was complaining about the ack being too lethal and that is should be turned down.
WHY? Because the players have become too lazy. The players of today are of the "I want it now" generation and cant take the time to do a full mission. 3 players running co-ordinated runs can deack a field in as little as 2 passes. All it takes is a little practice and team work.
Above I mentioned "play the right way". What I mean by that is in those days we played a WWII combat game. We looked at missions and the battles they provided the "way to play". Capturing a base was only a means to an end with the end being a battle against those hated .... (insert favorite name of the enemy team here). Be it stopping them from taking our base, or us taking one from them, it was all about the fight for that base.
These battles provided all kinds of action for all kinds of players. Strat runners, bombers, attack pilots, GVs both attacking and defending as well as those lone wolf fighter pilots.
First we need more numbers, second, of those coming in we can only hope that most of them WANT to play the game.
