Let's try answering a few of these things.
1. What's so gutsy about listening to a few whines and implementing a quick fix that pisses off 1/3 of your customers?
I always thought one of the goals in AH was to get together with your countrymates and gobble up enough bases to win a reset. The Rooks figured out we could do this with joint ops _ no great amount of rocket science involved there. I can't understand why bish and knits couldn't say "Rooks squads all seem to be working together on Sundays, so why don't we make sure to work together on Sundays to bash their crenelated little skulls in." Instead, they said "Oh, it's not fair...."
So now we have a system that makes it even tougher to win resets. Why not just eliminate countries and make it a pure furball arena?
2. I can see why 2/3s of the player base aren't complaining. I wouldn't complain either if suddenly God came down from on high and said "Hey, I heard you're upset so _ in addition to all the other breaks I've cut you (cheap perk planes and multiplied perk points) I'm also going to give you a big advantage over your competitors. To hell with being fair." Heck, once I saw that I'd start complaining even more loudly, who knows what else the almighty might do to appease me and get me to shut up.
I'd like to see what happens when the other sides find themselves suddenly shut out of planes.
3. People who whined about getting ganged also had the option of changing sides or working together. They did neither, which is why we have this poorly thought out system.
4. People who belong to squads, particularly those like my squad which regularly fly with other squads to provide mutual support and fighter escort don't want to go changing sides every couple of days because we have a poorly thought out system.
5. I regularly fly with fighter escort or provide fighter escort. In fact, on our squad nights we normally launch 6-12 formations of buffs with a few 51s along to swat down whatever manages to survive a first pass, but that still doesn't mean I'm willing to severely cut my chances of surviving a mission just because someone else complains. In fact, the simple fact that I am flying with a bunch of buffs and fighters have people whining about being ganged, so don't give me this "Oh, you should fly with escort" and then go whining to Hitech "Oh, I'm being ganged." (see the entry on ganging and teamwork below.)
6. Getting ganged by a horde might not be teamwork, but it sure is if it's done right.
7. Yeah, yeah, yeah, score has nothing to do with skill but I still wish I could regularly crack the top 10. Do you think I was serious in that suggestion? I was trying to make a point about trying to be "fair" by limiting the options of some players. (All except that part about Westy being limited to PT boats _ I notice no one complained about that.)
