I appreciate your and Animal's input. But I think the whole auto-switching "problem" is overstated. Because of this thread, when I logged on tonight, I counted 80+ people online. Including myself, I there were three (3) green auto-switchers: Me, Eagler, and Rodeo**. I doubt that we were affecting any imbalance. Now Shane may be right, that in off-times, when total MA head count is 25 people, it might make a difference. But otherwise, I don't see it.
- oldman
tl;dnr - auto switchers are generally unhelpful and often useless to the war aspect. Sure, they have their fun, but that's it... their fun. So, holding up auto switch as some kind of virtue signaling falls flat with me; it's selfish, not communal. I can honestly point to only 1 or 2 side switchers that play for team and not self.
Agreed it's less of an impact in the evenings when numbers are fairly close auto switching just bounces people around. I've found most auto-switchers to be less than useful to the side they're on; it's more about them scooping up the perk modifier. Here's a prime example: player M plays low B side in morning, scooping up yummy perks and uses those same perks in the evening to fly a temp/262 against the evening higher side Bs. In neither case is player M actually helping their side defend/attack bases <--- the "war" aspect that auto switching is supposed to address; but I'm sure they're having their fun.
Here's another freshly minted morning example - there's even a new player that was assigned to rooks. Notice how bish are now going to target rooks, and any incoming auto switchers will bounce to them for a bit, until knits/rooks have evenly basically ineffective stable numbers to either take back bases (knits) or properly mount a defense vs multiple bish attacks. Knits are also under eny, making attacking bish harder without more players to counter it:
Now, what happens as often as not, time is the equalizer as bish fail to reset and bish may own 15%+ of both knits and rooks. As knits/rooks log on in later morning/lunch time, they start taking back those bases from bish, giving the impression of and becoming effectively a double team. This is why Eagler struggles to find fights as an auto switcher (ironically,) he used to be knit, and auto switch keeps him there because of the time he plays knits are often low numbers.
By reducing the side switch timer from 6 hrs to 1 or 2 hours (spiez at this point, lofl, pls) it would allow Eagler, or other morning players to assess the overall situation and freely go where the action is concentrated. (My biggest protests are about the fact that it seems in evenings, the double teaming is more prevalent than spreading out the action. I protest even louder at the morning swarm refusing to balance action. instead going all in vs one side at a time - like the screen shot indicates. But this is a human player issue, not so much eny/switchers issue.
