New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[hitech]

To begin with I think side imbalencing has not been that much of a problem over the years. Only on a few occasions has things gotten out of wack.

But there have been times when the numbers have gotten far out of wack.  We typicly resist any change that forces people to different sides.We typicly are more inclined to giving incentives to changing sides to the lower number country, but so far it has not been a strong enough force to always keep the sides  close to balance.


Our current thought is that a country with substantialy more numbers, say in the realm of 20% more will have a time limit imposed between flights. This time would vary with the side balance.

This would have a few effects.

1. No one realy wants to wait to fly another fight, wrather than wait some will either change sides, or log off. Either has the effect of balancing the numbers.

2. The wait time will also have the effect of fewer people acctualy in the air at one time. Hence also balancing the fighting numbers.


Your thoughts?


HiTech

[B17Skull12]

awesome idea HT!

[Edbert]

I say try it. If it don't work out well we can always undo it.

-edit-:Of course there'll be many who will whine on 200 and here, but then again there's plenty of that already. Maybe giving people something new to complain about will help them feel better though.

[beet1e]

It wouldn't have been my first choice of remedy, but it's still worth consideration. Heck, I'd accept it!

One thing though, The Whinometer cabling is going to need liquid coolant.

[Karnak]

Gut reaction, I don't like it.  It feels heavy handed, but it may have come to that point.

The part that really jumped out at me from a negative standpoint was "or log off".  I'm not keen on things that make people log off. However, the numbers imbalance makes people log off already, but in a way that further hurts the balance.


The idea has merit.  I would rather see the people on the overpopulated side nudged to log off than the people on the underpopulated side.

The question I have is how much of a delay between flights are you thinking of?

[hitech]

On the amount of time, I need to do some estamations of average time of flight vs down time. It is then a matter of picking the time limit to put aproximatly the same number in the air from each side.


HiTech

[Reschke]

A couple of questions I have is how would that effect the CT? Also would it be a server side or CM adjusted item for those of us who put setups into the CT arena?

[Octavius]

HT, will this time limit be dynamic?  Numbers aren't out of whack 24/7.  If this is implemented, how will the time allowed between country switches be affected?  I'm afraid I'll be switching a LOT.

I basically agree with Karnak.  Initial reaction was 'iffy', but it's worth a shot.

[Eagler]

neat idea

what about if you did timed planes on both the higher numbered countries as a percentage of overage when compared to the lowest numbered country?

[hitech]

Yes it would be dynamic Octavious.

And there would be a some scaling numbers and on off flags to adjust it in the arena setup.


HiTech

[Karnak]

So the greater the imbalance in numbers the greater the delay, correct?

If implimented it will be interesting to see if country loyalty is the issue it seems to be on the BB.  For my part I'd change countries rather than log off.


Which bring up another question.  What of the delay in changing countries?  It limits spying to some degree, but if this were to cause rapid occilations in the numbers players could find themselves trapped on a side that has a significant delay and log off in frusteration.

A quasi solution to that might be to set it so that switching from Knight to Rook gives a 12 hour delay on switching to Knight, but the player can still switch to Bishop.  That would give one more switch before being locked down for 12 hours.

[Ohio330]

Well, you wanted the truth...  I don't like the idea.
I think there is no "incentive" other than negative incentive
for people to change sides.  Try radically reducing the perk
requirements for planes in the lesser sides.

   Oh, and I also think your idea is going to be really messing
organized squad ops.  We would never know what side our
squaddies are on.

[Howitzer]

As for me, I'm against it.  I fly with my squad on rooks.  Everyone voted Rooks, so here we are.  I feel that I would be inclined to lose interest in playing if I have to wait to re-up after a flight just because more people like to fly for the same country.  

I'm sorry, but I have to say that countries who lack players on certain nights like to blame everything that goes wrong on their player deficiency, when if 10-15 of them got together they could have many successful raids away from some of the front line furballs.  

--Mike/Howitzer

[Octavius]

"Which bring up another question. What of the delay in changing countries? It limits spying to some degree, but if this were to cause rapid occilations in the numbers players could find themselves trapped on a side that has a significant delay and log off in frusteration. "

Exactly.  If they find themselves trapped and frustrated, maybe waiting a few more minutes for the others to log will help alleviate their problem

I sense a rise in tension levels with the fellers who only get a few hours in a month.

[JB73]

I understand both sides of this argument.

Some think that loyalty to a "chess piece" as they call it is dumb.

Others think that the bonds grown over years of flying with the same people are a reason to fly (for 1 country especially)

My questions about the numbers thing are plentiful. When you mention 20% is that from the "lowest" to the "highest" country? Example:

Knights have 125 online
Bishops have 135 online
Rooks have 151 online

Those numbers are not way out of whack, but the math says the rooks have 20.8% more than the knights. In that scenario the rooks (though without overwhelming numbers) would be held from flying for the determined time.

Another issue I thought of is spawn campers in GV's. If in the above scenario the limit is opposed, and I spawn to a base not knowing someone is camping, I suddenly die and can not "fly".
Unfortunately, the only way sometime to clear a "spawn camper" is to spawn multiple people in quick succession so that someone gets a turret around to kill or disable said camper.

Another scenario includes a NOE base attack. In the current situation a base far behind lines can be attacked, and many miss it. The few that do go to defend try as they might sometimes get killed. If they are unable to take off again in an attempt to save the base, it is possible the base could be lost.

I don’t want to bring up the ugly topic of HO's, but this scenario I believe would only encourage poor tactics by the attackers. Take a few cannon planes HO every plane that tries to get up, and then soon no one will be able to defend. That is an unrealistic tactic, that I thing would adversely affect game play in a bad way.

Another question about this is would the time limit between changing countries be changed? If I don’t want to be limited, and change to knights, but a bunch also change, I could be limited again. Unfortunately with the current time limit I would not be able to change again. If the limit is changed too short you could run into the problems we have had in the past with country hoppers.



I understand that the problem is what it is. I personally see no overwhelming "quick" or "easy" solution. My thoughts are this has possibilities, but the exact details would need some serious consideration. I also see loopholes in this idea where what someone like myself would call “unsavory” players would take advantage of the above examples and “game the game” to use a bad expression.

These quick thoughts I came up with at work are just that. I hope you can find a way to work this out, while keeping the whole community happy. Personally I would have to say that I am not in favor of this possibility. I am sorry.


<> HiTechCreations Staff, please do not take my opinion on this matter as directed at any fo yourselves.