There is no way to enforce a balanced numbers of players in all three countries. Incentives, ENY and players in towers will keep the sides unbalanced and never 100% of all logged on players being active. 13 years in the game has taught me that.The player buyout idea 7 years ago was my idea. That was when we had triple the numbers in the MA and 500+ players in FSO. Even if there was a player buyout, there would have to be a hired staff of coders with Hitech on as a paid advisor to keep the game running on the servers. The point of a player buyout would hinge on advertising in all mass media. Plus, setting up demonstration areas in public places to bring the game to high foot traffic areas.The real elephant in the room is the amount of money needed to support a single player. The hardware alone especially with VR can cost thousands of dollars. If you want to be the best, then you need to play with the best. Current economic situations will keep that from happening. How can you convince people with no flight experience, no real investment into a gaming system and no historical adventure into playing a complex game with a very steep learning curve fraught with being killed over 100 times versus one kill of their own?Everyone who pays their $14.95 a month. They play how they see fit. They can choose a side, they can BnZ or HO, tank, bomb, turn fight, or sit in the tower. I applaud your desire to change things. Dale owns this game and runs it how he sees fit. He knows what can be done and what doesn't work. he has tried many things publicly for us and more privately with us knowing nothing. Until, I win lotto....
I'm thinking Hitech is all done with any major programming changes.
What I see the issue is that we have the numbers totally imbalanced. Bish have been outnumbering Rook/Knight with a ratio of at least 3:1 on most given time. which is understandable that there is no ENY, so therefor winning map has been much more desirable when you can with numbers and no restrictions of what to fly.Not only have the sides been imbalanced, but also the fights.Would make sense to log on as Knight or Rook during these situations to go fight the bigger #s. But what were seeing now is that the 2 smaller countries are fighting each other.Which makes sense, being people like to fight under a much more controlled environment rather than fighting a horde in which you almost certain immediate death. Not picking on bishops, all 3 countries do the same.What I wish for but at this point would be beating a dead horse was to implement a switch on the fly with NO wait time. Fights die down in a matter of minutes now. Once an offensive has been thwarted, you find yourself playing whack a mole protecting an other base that they attack.Only things that ever bothered me from ENY were the tower queens driving it up for no reason and the switch time rule. Seems as though without it now, its a race to win the map. Somehow we need tofigure out a way to give more incentive to actually "fight" eachother, rather than trying to sneak or totally horde real estate
The only problem I see is the lower population in game. A 20 pilot imbalance 10 years ago had little or no impact on game play with 200+ people in the main arena. With today's numbers it causes a big difference in game play. I hope we see those glory days again.
Air Warrior was so long ago to remember...were there any implementations for side balancing back then? I don't recall any.
