A good idea would be to have more towns able to be taken in TC, all with equal rewards but each at a different time gap. Necropolis for example is going unused for the most part, make that town able to be taken at like 1-2AM CET or something (and maybe Adytum too, we can leave the Hub/Junktown/NCR three-town strip safe and guarded) so people from other continents and such can have and hold a town instead of having it taken while they sleep (and vice versa).
Whilst this is predominantly an EU server, is based in EU and provided for by EU developers, it is still one of the only reasonably playable FOnline games and you could be supporting many more factions from the US rather than just the one that has to fight sleep schedules just to hold a town with more than 4 people online (of our 12+ and growing, during our own prime-time), or take every non-Redding/BH town overnight while all of the Europeans are asleep.
19-20 CET | Klamath | 12-13 EST |
20-21 CET | Den | 13-14 EST |
21-22 CET | Redding | 14-15 EST |
22-23 CET | Broken Hills | 15-16 EST |
23-00 CET | Modoc | 16-17 EST |
00-01 CET | Gecko | 17-18 EST |
01-02 CET | Necropolis | 18-19 EST |
02-03 CET | Adytum | 19-20 EST |
(Not entirely sure if I got the times right, may be an hour off/have DST in effect, but you get the idea.) You could also spread the times out even more over the course of the day, with 1 hour gaps inbetween each capture time.
Obviously balance it so that each town gives rewards of equal value (this is the important part of this system), so not everyone has to be awake/not at work to take the two towns worth a damn. This should add a lot more activity during North American timezones if done correctly and give everyone a chance at some town control, without having an ultra dominant faction own every "good" town because some others can't compete during their prime-time.
Point is, with a system like this, every gang in the game should be able to find a town that they can fight for during their primetime, whether this impacts other gangs' ability to take it is completely fine because they have their own ones to fight for. Wouldn't it be cool with every couple of towns being owned by a different faction with different laws and such?
Expanding on Narkie Narks idea here:
There seems to be dominant factions taking over the towns, usually one faction will control most of the towns at one time. This pushes smaller factions from getting that sweet sweet endgame PA. So here's what I suggest to balance the playing field and throw some more pvp competition into the mix.
THESE FIGURES ARE EXAMPLES OF OVERLAP I'M TALKING ABOUT, IT IS NON OPTIMIZED FOR BOTH EURO AND AMERICAN GAMEPLAY.
19 - 20 CET | Klamath | 12-13 EST |
19.30 - 20.30 CET | Den | 12.30 - 13.30 EST |
20 - 21 CET | Redding | 13 - 14 EST |
20.30 - 21.30 CET | Broken Hills | 13.30 - 14.30 EST |
21 - 22 CET | Modoc | 14 - 15 EST |
21.30 - 22.30 CET | Gecko | 14.30 - 15.30 EST |
22 - 23 CET | Necropolis | 15 - 16 EST |
22.30 - 23.30 CET | Adytum | 15.30 - 16.30 EST |
Another suggestion is switching broken hills to be taken at any time, keeping the same chance of PA (or give it a 1% chance), but increasing the ammo and caps by roughly 50% and making the locker open able every hour. So you can have a better reward for actually trying to hold the town, and also giving a place of high reward pvp to constantly take place. Also if broken hills is changed to that I'd suggest no militia in BH only to give noobs a chance to swipe loot.
I think those would effectively level the playing field.