Sucks big time when one side uses a hoard as a war wining tool to do exactly that, Win a war. It doubly sucks when it happens with the low arena numbers we are at because it's more intense and blatantly obvious what is beating you, Numbers. In the old days of 400-600 the hoards avoided each other and they were about the same size. Back then there was enough side activity that you could roll with the hoard or take part in smaller actions. Many lone wolf types took advantage of the hoards to land huge kill strings.
I doubt today as many people play this game for pure air combat. Seems many play for the activities they can get into with all of the toys, while one might venture the more energetic flip the map types are moving over to the bish. My squad was knights for the last 10 years and in the last 6 months moved to the rooks in the hopes of balancing ENY. Both sides seem devoid of energetic flip the map types. The knights have more numbers than the rooks, but the bish have almost equal numbers to both the knights and rooks at times.
In this game numbers kick qualitie's kester and flips maps. Leroy Jenkins has been avenged.
The best way to stop so many hoarding is for smaller maps, which has a smaller area to play in. Then you could have the same amount of bases you normally have, but just closer together so that they all fit. With closer back bases on a smaller map, players have the ability to defend from a back base a lot easier. This can have a big impact on limiting the hoard. Right now, you got bases that take 15 minutes to fly to, this creates high cons, secondly, it creates a team of hoarders to attack a base so they can take it down before the town pops. Thirdly, it creates long boring flights which mean high alt fights, which means normally the attack squad is going to already be 15K. This means the attack squad will have the #s and alt to pick off the lower defenders, then the cap comes. With shorter bases distances. Your team would have a much better opportunity at base defending in planes, rather than just roll Wirbles, 88s, or resupply.
If you look at Louches #s, you will see that the majority of players do spend on average 42% of their time in fighters, and like he said, some players, including myself, only get in these vehicles or bombers when there are no fights at all.
People have left because A. It takes too long to fly to a base for 1-2 (maybe enemies according the to dar). Players don't like aimlessly flying around for 20 minutes looking for a guy to shoot. This has been brutal for the off hours because this type of game play is slow, players have logged because it's slow and that makes it even slower. The hoards get created because when you have to fly 20 minutes to a base, it takes a good amount of people or no opposition to actually capture the field. This creates hoards. So, what I think would work better is, no manual resupply, just let teams capture bases if they get it down. This would change the fronts a little more quickly, and allow for more fights in the back part of the maps as well. With closer bases the defenders would be able to get to their base more quickly and stop the hoard. This would bring more fighting and less ganging/hoarding overall.
Btw, bustr, I think right now you are on the right track for the current maps you are working on. But I just think the fronts and bases should be 17 miles apart and just stick in more bases if you need to. It's fine if one team takes base after after base in the off hours, the shorter base distances will create better fights and probably stop so much hoarding. During the off hours especially, the players need to be pushed into a much smaller arena. The game play would be so much more enjoyable.
