- Yes
- No
Even with the great introduction of shifting brackets for ASB, the issue of people using the same meta planes persist, but now in rotation, which at least grants some nations to be better at some points.
Without hindering player agency the system could be the following: Spawn prices stay the same as they are now, based on player data, as a baseline. If you die and are forced to respawn, there is a 15 minute timer on that crew slot, and the same slot is spawnable again immediately, but with a multiplier of 400% spawn costs. Each minute that passes will procentually decrease the multiplier (5 minutes pass = 300%, 10 minutes pass=200%…) until it reaches zero and the slot returns to baseline spawn cost.
In addition to that, planes at the top of the bracket get the full baseline spawn costs, and planes at the very bottom (or lower) get a procentually reduced spawn cost at 50%.
To put it in practice:
I have two planes in my lineup - a Spitfire Mk.69 (BR 3.0, spawn cost 10.000SL) and a Tempest CDXX (BR 3.3, spawn cost 8.000SL). I join a 2.5-3.5 lobby, spawn the Spitfire with 7.500SL, and die on takeoff.
Back on the spawn menu now, the Spitfire is on cooldown, BUT, I can still spawn it immediately for 30.000, which I won’t because the price seems too steep, so I spawn the Tempest for 7200SL and go about shooting down planes, but I crash when landing.
Looking at the spawn screen now, I have both planes on cooldown, Tempest on 15 minutes with 28.000SL spawn but the Spitfire is now only 2 minutes away from complete cooldown and the spawn price is at a reasonable 10.500SL
This method could incentivise using a varied selection of planes, cost benefits for bringing undertiered planes, and reduced risk for days when the bracket is unplayable for your chosen plane, punish using the same plane for “zombing”. Additionally, players who would like to have a roster of as many premiums/good planes for that bracket would possibly have to reorganise and select even more crew slots for different combinations, which means they will spend more money, trust me.
The only issues I see in this scenario is that people who do not care about SL (Especially nearly free premiums) would still take the maximum penalty of respawning the same plane over and over, thus only the “poor” get punished, and leave the lobby prematurely. And we would probably see more lobby shopping if someone lost all of their small lineup and decided it’s not worth to continue in the same lobby.
To alleviate this, maybe a 5-15 minute hard lock would be imposed, and only when it runs out, the cost multiplier timer starts running.
