New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[Overlag]

Originally posted by 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.

that would meen rooks can get to there magic 40k

[Overlag]

i got it!!!!

take the oxygen masks out of the planes so the side with the highest numbers cant fly over 10-13k LOL

(ok ok it was kinda a joke......)

[milnko]

This thread got pretty long, pretty fast, so I didn't read every post, therefore excuse me if this idea has been mentioned;

How about we attack the numbers imbalance from a more strategic stand point by limiting fuel, ammo, ords, & troops?

Seems reasonable that a countries resources would be stretched to the breaking point if it had over a predetermined number of players logged on.

By limiting fuel and ammo loadouts, flights are shortened, fields far behind frontlines are unreachable, and fewer fields can be taken by limited troop availability.

[DipStick]

Originally posted by Dawggus
I respectfully disagree.  If a customer primarily flies Squad Ops, which it sounds like many do based on the responses, we have limited their gameplay if they are in a "timeout" when the Squad rolls.  I would not prefer to switch sides and miss the enjoyment and camraderie of my Squadmates, instead I would just fly every "other" mission with my Squad.  I guess in a way that is my choice, but it's driven from the reason I play this game, to fly with my Squaddies.  I don't think I'm alone.

So your whole squad switches to the lowest numbered country and misshun to your hearts content, what's the problem?

PS... I like the dar ideas. Make lowest number country indestructable, middle country normal with less down time and high number country only have bar dar.

[TalonX]

It initially sounds like it sucks.....  I hear some people already hand wringing about having to move squads.....

Nonsense.

I like the idea of having to wait.....    Might end the suicide runs that make this game so damn unrealistic.     (Dive in at 500 mph, pork troops or ord, and auger).   I'd like to see them have to wait 10 minutes to fly again

[Canaris]

I feel different.

This is what I feel:

1.  Quadruple the cost of perk planes for countries who have 20% more people like you said.

2.  Perk the planes with a ENY between 5-10.  That would be perking most of the planes people fly so they probably change countries to get to fly the plane.


Canaris

[TalonX]

There are probably a million ways to accomplish this....

Real life?  If you got shot down, it took a while to get back up.  (Forget analyzing if you died what happened to your next flight).......

There should be a delay for all DEATHS and captures.  Starting with the imbalance to implement this isn't a bad idea.

[DREDIOCK]

(most Rooks start to log on around 9 and leave around 11 or 12).




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.

. [/B]

Cant say for the bish as I dont fly for them. But for the knights. Those effective stratagies was 3-5 of us running around all night long doing nothing but porking barracks. and basically thats all I did. All night long. Untill all the front linebarracks were down
Least  thats what I was doing. Fortunately for me anyway it didnt seem like many rooks were interested in stopping me as on several occasions I flew right past entire formations on my way to target and only once did someone somone try to stop me and only one other occasion did someone break off to come after me. and even then he either changed his mind or it was decided I wasnt a threat to their flight and he  rejoined his formation. that enabled me to kill the last of the front line barracks
Normally this is not the case. Normally Im lucky if I can make it to 1 or 2 feilds to kill barracks without getting ganged en route  let alone to the 3-4 I did manage to get in at. and even then half the time those barracks are back up by the time I can get back there.
Now I dont know if they tried but it seemed the barracks stayed down an awful long time for being rook horde night. Typically I have witnessed with my own eyes rooks think nothing of sending what looks to be to me entire squads who's sole job it is to resupply bases and get troops back up I didnt see that this past sunday
Also it would seem that rooks have some very dedicated players who think nothing of flying goons from 3-4 bases back to bring troops in.
Now I dont know if they tried or not but I didnt see any of that which is not the norm. I say that because I specifically look for such activity.
I owe much of the lack of rook success to poor planning and execution dispite the great missions they put up.
And they were great missions. Problem is, they seemed to lack cohesion. And were overloaded with bombers. Or so it seemed to my eyes.
Made for a great view and probably some pretty cool films but didnt accomplish a whole lot
Also I have to hand it to the knights that night also as we seemed to put up a tenacius defence despite the odds.
 But then again the lack troop availability and lack of imagination used in the planning stage went a long way to allow this defence.
Particularly since on several occasions the rooks were on the brink of overall success but Im guessing they lacked troops to complete the task
Im sure the rooks will eventually figure it all out and soon enough will be rolling along like roving mongols of old distroying everything in their path and bringing in 5-6 goons at a time as they normally do.
Overall I'd say though the rooks did more to stop themselcves more then the knights did to stop them.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Widewing
I think that you are on the right track, but that your solution is too complicated. Let's keep Hitech's time penalty but add some options.

I would rather see it this way when lopsided numbers reach a specific trigger level:

You take off in a fighter. You eventually lose the fighter. You can wait 15 minutes to take another fighter, or you could launch immediately in another class, such as a bomber or vehicle. Whatever the result of that sortie, no matter how short (in other words you couldn't just take off and land to reset fighter access), you can't get in another fighter for 15 minutes from the time you lost the first one. Loss of bombers or GVs bears no time penalty.

What this means is that after a horde hits a base, those guys who get shot down will either be coming back in a bomber or a vehicle. Maybe they won't be coming back at all because bombers and GVs take a while to go anywhere. But, at least they can still play. I think most guys will be back up in the bombers and GVs instantly, and that will greatly reduce the offensive power resulting from a numbers imbalance.

I think this would work and no one would be denied their opportunity to play. Only their options are curtailed. I would also bump up the player threshold to 25% as I've seen 20% shifts over the course of 30 minutes.

My regards,

Widewing

<> Widewing, good idea but I think that after 15 minutes, the country with the numbers may have 0 fighters in the air.  Again this is forcing people to fly a bomber or a gv.  Nothing wrong with forcing them, but if HT is going to do that, he may as well force them in to a country of his choice and get it over with.
People react better to rewards than to penalties.  Lets find a way to reward even numbers using perks, plane sets, stripers, amount of time stuff stays down, free beer, etc.

[seabat]

instead of making the choice switch countries, wait between flights, fly with a plane you dont want, or log, would it be better to have a second MA to go to?

Not the CT but a second MA.  

The only difference between the MA's is the second MA has a 10 player limiter.   No country has more than a 10 player advantage.   If you enter the MA and rooks have 10 players more than bish or knights you have to choose one of those countries.   10 player limiter would allow squads or friends to be on the same side.

People who dont like the situation in the first MA can go the the second.

[Edbert]

Originally posted by Karnak
I still hold that the perk icons are the single biggest flaw with the perk system.  Those icons prevent the perk planes from being seen as a reward. Without them being a reward, perk points don't matter so no modification of the perk earning or pricing system will have any real effect.

I agree with that. Hundreds of players have thousands of perks in the bank and hardly ever use them. Who wants to fly through the arena ALL the time with a giant "shoot me first" icon over their head. I'd fly the Spit14 a lot if it wasn;t for the icon, same for the temp. But then again, the La7 guys still fly with the "shoot me first" icon over their heads, so maybe I am wrong

I don't know of a solution, particularly on the Tempest. The 152 and spit14 could be genericized easily enough though, just like the Chog. But I agree that is the reason so many who can spend a couple of whole tours flying nothing but perk rides don't.

[hitech]

Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.

Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %


As I have been reading the responses this morning somthing struck me. Most of the responses not wanting the time limit all had one thing in common.

Each person did not wish to give up their country to balance the numbers. And because they were not willing to change sides they didn't want the time limit. Well isn't this the basic problem we have right now? That people are not willing to change sides, they want some one else to have to change sides. Or they want to give somthing else to the underdog to apease them, but they are not willing to give up anything to solve the issue.

Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.

I belive that most players would like to see the sides more evenly balanced. And most of the alterntive sugestions do not provide much motivation for people to change sides. They also would be extreamly difficult to predict what the outcome would be.

As far as the acctual times go here are a few samples in the range I am thinking. This is based from an average sortie time of 7.5 mins, That was from a random sample of 6 players, I need to queary the enter score base to fine the real average sortie time.

      
   Count   Mins Wait
Bish   100   0.00
Knights   120   0.00
Rooks   120   0.00

   Count   Mins Wait
Bish   100   0.00
Knights   120   0.00
Rooks   140   1.32

   Count   Mins Wait
Bish   100   0.00
Knights   140   0.00
Rooks   200   5.92

   Count   Mins Wait
Bish   100   0.00
Knights   130   0.00
Rooks   200   6.66


HiTech

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by hitech
Did a query of the country totals. This is from the entire subscrition base.

Bish = 31.1%
Knights = 32.2%
Rooks = 36.7 %


 

I'm not sure what method you used to derive these numbers, but from a statistical standpoint there is only a 5.5% deviation between any one country and Rooks (Bishops). I think GD's data proves much greater than 5.5% of the population switches countries regularly and/or rotates their entire squadron. Compound that with the fact that all subscribers play a very unequal amount of time and those figures lose even more meaning. One Bishop who logs 200 hours a camp is worth 4 Rooks like myself who only fly 50 hours a camp.

Zazen

[Murdr]

Originally posted by hitech
Even the suggestions of the new guys beeing put into the low number country is imposing limits just like the time limit. And the suggestion of not letting people switch to the high number side is just as limiting as the wait to fly limit.

Just wanted to disagree on the one point.  If JoeRook and I want to fly together, and I cant switch to his country, he can always switch to mine.  Hence we arent really limited.  If just wanted to fly the high# country, and I couldnt, yes it is a limit on where I can fly, but I can still fly as often and quickly regardless of what country Im in.

My only concern with the time limit is how it will affect gameplay aginst those who are subject to it.  Its kind of frustrating running into players who simply will avoid any engagement unless they have a clear advantage in situation or numbers, and I suspect a time limit would breed more of that.
However that may be a short sighted concern if in fact this does what you want it to do.  If this annoys people enough to not let the numbers too far out of hand as a general rule, then reaching the threshold for time limits kicking in wouldnt be an issue.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by Murdr
My only concern with the time limit is how it will affect gameplay aginst those who are subject to it.  Its kind of frustrating running into players who simply will avoid any engagement unless they have a clear advantage in situation or numbers, and I suspect a time limit would breed more of that.
.

You bet it would. You think people fly timid now, you ain't seen nothing yet! If the mere fact they get a deaths in their fighter sheet is enough to make people fly timid/cautious try adding this timer. Just speaking for myself, I would make DAMN sure I NEVER got shot down, hell would freeze over before I got shot down and sat in the hanger for ten minutes waiting to re-up.

Zazen