The six hour timer worked much better than twelve when there were more people on. With such low numbers, fights come and go in an instant. If a few players log on or off, the numbers change drastically. Let's critique the timer from a different perspective.
ENY, as we know, is a side balancing mechanic that gets a bad wrap. I am not here to defend or attack ENY, but to use its status as a baseline for side switching. ENY kicks in above about 36% of the population. In the MA, as I am typing this, the Rooks have 28 of 74 total pilots and an ENY of 1.8. A Bishop logged off and the ENY went to 3.7 and another Bishop logged making it 6.2. Then, a few seconds after that a Rook logged on and the ENY went up to 8.1 and now the Knights have ENY of 1.1. In a matter of 75 seconds, we went from Rooks having 28 of 74 to the Rooks having 29 of 73 yet ENY went from 1.7 to 8.1. The numbers at this point were 18-26-29.
Why am I telling you this? The point of ENY is to balance the arena. One way is to limit the aircraft that you fly so that a side may not have the most people and still fly LA's and Spit 16's. Another option available to us to balance the arena is to switch sides. If I wanted to join the lowest side right now and avoid the ENY of Rooks, I would go to the Bishops. But, the Rooks only outnumber the Bishops by 10. That number can and will be reduced in a matter of hours when the night crew and prime time kicks in. But guess what? I am stuck here on Bishops until 1:30 AM. So, if at 10 PM ET the low side is not my side and the Bishops have an ENY I can do nothing to help except log off. We want to keep people logged in.
Six hours works if there are 200 people online because small fluctuations are not detrimental to arena balance. I am not advocating for or against ENY, just saying that as it currently exists, one of the two options that ENY affords us is not actually an option. It is my opinion that ENY is in place to force us to fly weaker aircraft or convince us to switch sides. Once I have switched once, I may not switch for 6 hours, yet the low side and ENY may fluctuate 10 times in that amount of time. Perhaps changing the time is not the best answer. Maybe we should allow folks to switch to the low side at any time if the side they are on has an ENY active? In the case of the Rooks currently, if you are a Rook with an ENY of 8, you may switch to Bishops who are lowest. This would be a free switch that does not begin the timer. So when Bishops are no longer low side or have no fight a few hours from now, you may switch and that begins the timer.
I think a 3 hour side switch time is justified in today's MA (or the idea aforementioned). Consider the low population and how the ENY is easily and drastically effected by it. A shorter switch timer would alleviate this problem and it would allow ENY to work a little better and as intended. People are apprehensive about switching because of the commitment. If we had a free switch to the low side or a shorter timer, I think the country balance would improve instead of degrade.
Can we have a test of this in June? A whole month of 3 hour switch timer? Collect some data and see if the ENY machine was higher lower than in previous months. Thank you for considering, hitech.
