You are projecting your own narrow gameplay preferences on everyone else. What if many or even most weren't actually looking for 'better furballs'? How do you actually know why people left? Or better, why AH just didn't recruit enough new players, because players do leave games, even great and fun ones, all the time. What is your data base for a whopping '100%' knowledge?
Interestingly enough, we DID have such places for better furballs, the early EW & MW arenas and WWI. After the split about everyone was in EW & MW arenas first. And yet they left to return to LW. WWI was nothing but a close range furball for a month. Then players just went back to LW, never to be seen again for the most part.
If everybody just wanted the best and quickest furballs, why did they leve those places?
On the other hand, AH had all that, the hordes (even more extreme ones than today), the landgrabbing, the utter dominance of a very few 'endgame' fighters. Yet AH's number kept growing for years.
I think your view is much biased and very simplistic. It's as if I would claim "100%, the numbers are down because the central strats are gone" (which is actually my personal pet peeve).
Your idea does seem rational at first. But you fail to acknowledge base distance and time per fight. IF the early and midwar arenas were on a smog 8 size map, it would have exponentially got more popular over time. Instead, there was about 4 fish in a giant pond of 82 bases that take 20 minutes to get to. NOT FUN FOR 5 PEOPLE. Best to start with very small map and grow as the #s increase.
Now, we are running into the same problems in the late war arena.
People do want furballs and action. Just look at your own stats of how many people choose fighters over other game types. What does that tell you? And why have so many known furballers left the game? It is too slow.
Why is it, when there's a huge group in the WW1, post get made about how exciting it is, but you cant take into consideration that quicker game play provides more fun for most people?
Do I need to start posting pictures of the map to show why fights are stalling in many places? Will that prove why there is such a lack of action?
I actually agree with your strat premise. I think that should be looked at. But realistically, most people join this game because of fighter combat, and the lack of acknowledging that, and not working on making it more actionable as the #s decrease, is the reason why #s have not regained momentum.
I disagree that light perking a few planes would make players mad. They have 34,000 perks... They could fly any plane till their heart is content, but you don't see everyone flying Tempest for a good reason. This would generally get more players in other planes besides the easiest BnZ planes in the game. The idea is to make the fights more balanced and there for more fun.
You tell me how exciting it is to see 1-2 cons or a small tiny dar, you roll off the base for about 10 minutes looking for them, only to find them at 18K in 190Ds. You wonder why people don't think that's exciting anymore?
The whole risk adverse thing is more relative to the time it takes per fight, rather than who they are fighting with.
For example. The fights in the DA that took 5 minutes to get some kills, was a lot more fun for newer players than taking 30 minutes searching for 2 190Ds at 18K and getting BnZed, then they run away at loss advantage. Lets all just roll Temps and have a pow wow shall we? The DA failed because the layout was boring, the water took too long to fix, and combining the DA with a furball arena is too big. That simple.
People do not want to spend more than 15 minutes looking for action. That is the biggest problem with the base distance and size of the current maps. Actually the map size doesn't even matter as much (with more than 60 players), but it is the base distance that makes or breaks fights in most cases.
That is the reality. It is not biased. It is like Philosophy, I have been in the game for a long time, know 95% of the planes to the top level of performance, and fly with many top level players. I am not just throwing things out there. These are the real problems, with easy solutions, that do nothing to change the game. They are parts of the game that can be adjusted, very simple.
You and Fugi can keep saying we need more #s to make the game play better. That is true, but doing nothing to address why the original players got tired of the game, is only going to create a bigger leak of players leaving when they all show up initially. The hole in the bucket needs to be filled. If players cannot find action within a 15 minute span of time, they just quit, and as the #s get lower, while the maps stay the same, bases stay the same distance, only makes it worse and worse.
Hear me now but understand me later.
