Originally posted by scottydawg
We've been discussing this on our squad BBS, some like it, others don't... for various reasons. One retired squaddie came back because of this change..
I have no idea how you are going to break the aptly put 'herd mentality' aside from hard caps on the arenas.
However I do think this spells the end of the monster-squads and to a lesser extent, the hordes (if they are in fact any different other than in name). Can't say I'm sorry to see that go away.
Speaking as a member of one "monster squad" that is continually maligned for a style of flying we rarely participate in, I would like to draw a distinction between flying in the same arena with friends and driving 90 planes into a undefended base.
First, I would point out to those who can remember what the last map looked like BEFORE this change (which has many good points btw), you can see with your own eyes that the vast amount of hording was done NOT by monster squads, but by the country who simply had the numbers. "Monsters" had nothing to do with it... EXCEPT... when a side is down to a dozen or so fields on a giant map, the introduction of team that on ONE NIGHT flys toward common goals (NOTE: I didn't say "all flys together on a single mission") it tends to even up the odds. On nights many of us would be on but NOT flying together, spread all over the map, we were hoarded constantly. Then, on the one night we do, we tend to push back the incoming hoard, make it hard if not impossible for them to gain ground, and while we're at it take back a little real estate.
It seems most people want to overlook the beginning state of affairs and focus only on one snapshot of the whole week and infer the large squad is solely responsible for everything they don't like in the arena.
They aren't, and in a giant map, I think everyone knows that.
Because we fly together as a team doesn't mean we're all in the same mission. Some might be hitting strat, taking down troops, defending one or more airfields while some others work on attacking a base or clearing a cap with a fighter sweep. If you imagine it's 90 guys all taking off and going the same place flight after flight you're mistaken.
How this applies in the change is that we can no longer have any guarantee that we can fly with the guys we've developed friendships with. It almost seems like the attitude is, too bad, go make new ones. I don't have any problems with making new ones, I do have a problem with tossing the old ones overboard.
There has been talk of some kind of inter-arena comms... so what? Why don't we just call each other on the phone and report what we're each doing in ANOTHER arena? The point is we want to work on something together, fly together, and actually SHARE the fun of this game. Is that asking too much? It doesn't matter so much WHICH arena, just that we can all fit into one.
I like many of the changes more than I thought I would. Some I don't as far as gameplay goes, but I have confidence those things will get wrung out and adjusted as needed, no problem there. I just think that a common theme in the now-closed thread was the issue of arena size, and it seems to me jacking up the allowable ought to take away about 20-25% of the complaints I've read so far, and it doesn't seem unreasonable or earth-shattering to accomodate that small change.
