What's the correct number of players to designate the low player time periods?
In the old days we use to talk about "general mass". Its a point when there were enough people on AND playing where the arena seemed to wake up. Fighting started, base taking started to roll and so on. Until that "number" was hit it was hard to get/do much of anything. Back in those days that number was in the 150-200 players
Today we almost NEVER get to that number, but you can still see it work. On those nights were there is 120 players there seems to be more fights, more base captures. Once the numbers drop under 100 things start drying up. More often than not this is when you'll get two teams fighting it out with the third team being ignored by the other two.
I dont know if HTC has data on when the arena is rolling and when it gets too lop-sided. Luche maybe has a chart for it.
As a starting point,
under 50 players = no ENY
50-100 players = a modified ENY (slower climbing, half of what it is now)
100 and more the ENY we have now (with added coad to balance it better due to side ganging)
Is this THE answer? Maybe, maybe not. The point is to try something else, tweak it to see how it works. Does it help make the game play in the MA better? Thats what we need. Things that help knock off some of the frustration in the game. Learning to fly and fight is frustrating enough, lets not add more. Its the frustration that chases players away, both old and new.