Falcn...
I am also pretty durn sure that HiTech saw how prevalent massive NOE hoards had become, found that it was unhealthy, and decided to do something about it.
All he would have to do is fly for a few hours on any given night to see this.
I seriously doubt that he made the changes because any post that was put up on the forum.
Why can't capturing a field involve combat? What about THAT can't you comprehend? Why does avoiding combat seem like a good thing to you in a combat game?
As I have said time and again one of my favorite things about this game is capturing bases. I am constantly orchestrating field captures on the knit side.
Thing is... I don't try to AVOID the enemy when doing so.
Lute
There is no reason why it can't involve combat but i feel you may be too myopic in your view...
I guess the first concept i would challenge is why is YOUR definition of combat the only one you recognize? For example in Tribes, Brothers at Arms, and other fighting sims there is an option to be a sniper. many would criticize these folks as "cowards" "gutless" but the bottom line is being sneaky and planning "path of least resistance" "less likely to die" attacks is more appealing to some then brute force. In World of Warcraft and Everquest one can become more powerful by commerce and trading then they could ever hope to by simply running around and collecting and killing things. Guys who prefer "the fight" are quick to denigrate those who don't. Both styles of play in my opinion are legitimate...you seem to view the one that results in a large clash as the only style that should be appropriate.
Again, i love a good furball (my favorite are cv fights) as much as anyone else but the current setup will lend itself to hordes rolling bases as the major way to effect land grabs. I use noe's to try and gain back land that we have lost or to keep an enemy off balance. I rarely use them to "roll" other countries.
Not to be personal here but lets use the last Titanic Tuesday as a prime example. I forget the airbase numbers but I have the film. I logged on at 9pm est to see that the knits had taken alot of the bishop western territory. I saw two full nit darbars rolling a base. Nits were swarming us with fiters and dropping the fhs frequently with buffs. Bish were clearly outnumbered and having trouble getting alt to oppose the waves of buffs coming in. Yet you were buzzing around in a 262 picking guys off??? I bit my tongue but found it ironic having already read several of your posts in the "new radar" thread. Is that the fun aircombat fight you are advocating? Are 262s the type of plane you are advocating to encourage game enjoyment when you already outnumber the side you are fighting?? Rooks/nits were barely fighting but that is the fight you chose to be in. Now I'm not here to whine about being ganged etc etc...thats just part of the game. The only option we had was to up 8 p51s and drop fhs at the base you guys were flying from. So then we had fhs dead at BOTH airfields and that is how the rest of the night went. Personally I can't stand that game play but there weren't any other options left to counter being heavily outnumbered by a country who seemed determined to roll us. Having an option to NOE would have been a reasonable counter to keep the nits off balance imho (because they weren't using any other bases...they were all concentrated at just one). Currently "porking" and "dropping fhs" are the only options we will have when we are being rolled.
I see guys typing about how we "will adapt" etc. No worries...this is not a new sitaution we find ourselves in...this is the way it was years ago and porking ord, killing troops, dropping fhs etc is what you must do to prevent land grabbing. To me having to do those things are the furthest things away from aircombat i can imagine and i hope that is not where we end up.
Hitech has been right in the past so i will wait and see how this plays out...these are just my opinions on what will evolve. The only winners here are the guys who like to pad their fiter scores by hanging arouond the edges of these battles picking off trgts and landing their kills. They truly don't care about the capture as much as having guys occupied so they can become targets of opportunity. You know the type of pilot I am referring to and I don't typically place you or your squad in that category.