New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[LWACE]

i dont like it either, i think people will start to leave the game when they have to wait to fly a game they pay for or else switch to a country they dont wana fly for.

just mho.

[Scherf]

Getting ganged doesn't bug me enough to make me log. Not being able to fly because my side happens to *be* the gang would bug me enoug to make me log. I wouldn't change sides, I'd log, and find something else to spend time & money on.

Perks, shrug. I like having them, and I think the system is underdeveloped - it should cost something, something related to ENY value, to fly an ueberplane, whether currently perked or not. Might be another can 'o worms. Just my $.02 worth.

Cheers,

Scherf

[ramzey]

Originally posted by 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

when we was with 308 squadron  we swich to rooks due inbalanance. We was together with rooks building their stranght.
When somone start crying about unbalanced arena 6 months ago ,we swich for knights to help them.
Flying knights was horrible beucose noone even try to fly organized and noone care about taking bases. We had friends in rookskand so we swich back very piss off on knights.

We fly rooks beucose our buddies fly here.

I dont like suffer holding in tower beucose other country pilots perform bad.
I dont like suffer beucose HTC will reward poorest side.
I dont like tu see bunch of poor skilled pilots flying 262 beucose is cheap.
I wil never again ask my squadies to swich sides beucose of arena unbalance.

Btw, Idea about restrict is not new and was plugin to russian free host 3 years ago.
Its prewents people from being voulched, nothing more.
If you die in first 1-2 minutes of flight, you can reup after 30 s from same base. But you can up from any other base right after you die.

oh one more , if somone start limiting my time in air or hold me tower beucose of unbalance , i will  log off, possibly forever

[Cooley]

Though nothing to do with #'s balance, this is somthing I was thinkin bout, and probably has been discussed before.

What about increasing down times/resupp time for bases out side your homeland(zone) ?

One side is rolling taking bases and has extended out way beyond thier "Default" Homeland, and in essence extended beyond thier supply lines....so downtimes for Strats like troops,ammo and fuel are increased alot and town stays down alot longer.

This may slow the "Race for the Reset" style of gameplay a bit.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by Simaril
This just makes sense. Limit ability to join the biggest country, and let time drain the numnbers down to acceptable levels. No one person is forced to do anything, nobody's choices are forced, and time solves the problems. When numbers are near equalized, normal switching is reactivated.

Controlling the spigot will set the water level, as there will always be a slow drain out the bottom....

That is a very good suggestion! New people to the game do not care for which team they play. As opposed to long-term dedicated players, the majority of which have a very high country fidelity. The short-staffed teams get to bolster their population, but in a way earn it because they are, in effect, training new recruits to the game. Hopefully, in the process integrating them into their squadrons and making them into high country fidelity pilots for that team, permanently. This kind of mentoring also has the potential to improve the 'sense' of community within countries overall.


Zazen

[moto61]

I think this option is better than no option.

May take some tweaking when actually implemented.

[ET]

War is hell.
If one country with 100 players and 2 bases is getting gangbanged by the other 2 countrys with 75 players each, who needs the most help ?
Why not try the perk multiplyer on total bases owned for 1 tour before doing anything drastic as limiting a players ability to up when he wants.

[Misfit]

I agree with "Kweassa" as usual!
I like making the team with numbers actually fly different planes then the usual La7, spit, or Niki, or atleast make them pay a price.

Its really a win, win IMHO. More inferior planes get used or atleast the perk system will have some real value.

[scott123]

I think you are asking for trouble limiting time flown,this I feel will cause as many problems as it solves.

Much better to limit the side with most numbers to planes of lower value.Just limit top end air frames.

I could certainly live with this idea.

[Replicant]

How about disabling frontline bases for the country with the largest numbers?  They'd have to fly in from bases further back and therefore inducing a 'time to action' type of effect.  This allow the other countries to counter attack then.

[ghostdancer]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Oh no Im not misremembering at all.
I dont remember exactly what time it was but  When rooks were at 238
Knights at that time had 130 I forget exactlywhat the bish had.
I mentioned it on Channel 200. Probably have it on film as I had my cam runing most of that night.
A little while later I checked again and it was 240
not that it matters, once numbers reach 200 they are already past the point of being rediculous.

Well without a log parser function (like the one that has been up on HTC website for countries but says coming soon) can't exactly tell. For this past sunday I took a shot at the peak times so if the numbers went there it spiked and played out fast somewhere between 9:36 and 10:43 or it happened between 9 and 9:36 (most Rooks start to log on around 9 and leave around 11 or 12).


Sun - 8/1/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B136 - K114 - R203 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss20.png
Sun - 8/1/2004 10:43 pm EDT - B122 - K124 - R208 : http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss21.png

However, as for being ridiculous .. I have to say that even with the numbers quoted from these screen shots take a look at the bases. In 1 hour of fighting with 200+ players the Rooks were only able to get 1 Knight base ..

9:36 25 Bishop Bases, 24 Knight Bases, 20 Rook bases
10:43 25 Bishop Bases, 23 Knight Bases, 21 Rook bases


It looks to me like those Bishops and Knights who log onto sundays instead of avoiding have come up with some very effective strategies to hold the Rooks back. Now, yes they have no hope of actually resetting the Rooks or siezing bases back during this 3 hour to 4 hour window on sundays but the ones on have adopted practices / tactics of hunkering down on the defense and not giving an inch without a fight. Was effective this sunday. And has for the last 3 sundays.

So they have adapted and gone from being clubbed like baby seals to coming up with ways to withstand the Sunday numbers by concentrating on defense instead of avoiding the night like some squads have posted they are doing.

Imagine what it would be like if instead of avoiding sunday if more Bishops and Knight squads actually rallied and turned out on sunday to stuff it in the Rooks face.

Its very possible Knights came up in force last night:

Tues - 8/11/2004 9:36 pm EDT - B134 - K166 - R149 :http://www.dgideon.org/aceshigh/ahss27.png

If the Knights could get 160 on Tuesday and if they then could get 160 on Sunday might be very interesting.

Being stopped cold when the Rooks have strong numbers is also going to have an affect on the "Fair Weather" rooks .. the ones that came over because of the numbers who basically are going to get frustrated by the fact that an unorganized mass can't or isn't crushing significantly smaller forces. Its much easier to organize 130-160 than it is 200 .. so the 200 size force is clumsy and does stupid things. While the smaller force has become really, really motivated.

[AKcurly]

Well, I don't know if it will work, but I think it's the best proposed solution thus far.

I don't think modification of perk costs will work.  Here's why.  Gross number imbalances will still happen and then you'll have every single outnumbered countryman flying a 262.  I would rather play quake (and I don't even own a copy - heh, might have to buy one.)

Personally, I have no problems switching countries if the number imbalance favors us.  I'm not sure what my trigger would be, but somewhere around a minute or two would have me switching countries.

I think it's worth a shot.  If nothing else, it might give each of us the opportunity to meet new friends.

Heck, if it doesn't work, we can always request a change.

curly

[Simaril]

I guess I dont see why we're developing these complex solutions to a simple problem. Hitech's suggestion is fairly intrusive, on a sortie by sortie basis -- and it hits the newbies, least likely to impact game play, the hardest.

Point 1: Problem is numbers imbalance impacting gameplay.

Point 2: Interventions have secondary impacts that often outweigh their primary purpose. So, be direct and keep it simple to minimize this.

Point 3: If problem is numbers, what could be more direct, with fewer unanticipated complications, than limiting numbers on the high team?

K.I.S.S. principle in action -- "Unable to switch to Rooks due to numbers imbalance."

Everybody sees the numbers, not even newbies can whine, and current players can take off and fly -- which is why they're paying $15.

In 3-4 weeks, problem solved and we go back to other BBS topics. Why do anything more complictaed than that?

[Delirium]

Maybe HiTech is pulling an 'Alan Greenspan' and is encouraging us to fix the problem ourselves before he uses the heavy handed approach. Can we fix this ourselves? Talk to your squads and help the number situtation...

Either way, I'm definitely not willing to pay for time I can't use, its akin to watching cable TV 50 minutes instead of the whole hour show.

[Ghosth]

The idea of a sortie timer, or having to wait will put field defense at a disadvantage.

Who will roll with enemy fighters coming in high if there is a chance you can't respawn right away?


I said 2 years ago that #'s should be tied to field acks. Makeing it harder for the country with all the #'s to defend itself. Eventually causing them to break up the horde simply to maintain what they have.

Or lose fields at a rate faster than they can gain them.

If the high counry lost an ack at each field or city for every 25 people more than the other countrys. It wouldn't take long before people would be vulching the horde on takeoff.