So I was on for an extended period today (~7 hours). During that time there were 3 alerts. In every alert, one faction basically ghost capped the alert continent (good for you, Vanu). This has also happened during alerts over the past week as well. I know Hossin is new this week and people want to play on it, but I don't see this as being an anomaly. It's how it always has been. The new changes aren't going to change the way people view alerts. What I see from this that players really couldn't care less about the alerts. Continent locking, while nice, isn't worth giving up a good fight for. In all seriousness, most good players and members don't run out of resources often enough to make cont locking vital. Most people are perfectly happy fighting in a territory to earn resources till they can pull again. Hell I don't even check because I don't care if we have a bonus or not. Sure it's nice when we do, but I rarely take notice. Here are my suggestions: 1.) There has to be a better incentive for fighting in alerts... for leaving good fights... How about instead of lowering costs, they lower timers for their respective bonus... light vehicles have a 40% reduction time, Air and MBT have 30%, etc.. (numbers are made up and not thought out). That's some serious boost in fighting capability that would be worth fighting for and actually may help to break stalemates. Once a new alert starts, the timer reduction goes away so everyone has equal footing to fight for the next continent lock. 2.) Alerts need to happen FAR less often so continent locking means something. Who cares if you lock a continent that will be unlocked within 5-6 hours? There's no pride is winning something that goes away in short order. Sure, we like to give everyone a shot at the bonus, but that also means successes are short lived (and therefore not worth it). Hell, it sucks if I play an alert for two hours and have to log. When I log back in, there's no bonus because the lock has gone away. (Maybe bonuses from alert stay with characters who fight on the continent for 24 hours... kinda like a boost. If you don't fight there, no boost for you! Even better, boosts stay relative to the amount of time you put in the alert. Fight for 1/2 the alert, you get 1/2 the boost time, fight for the full alert, you get the full boost time.) <-- I like that idea. 3.) Since there will be only 2 continents open at any time (in the future), the amount of territory needed to open a locked continent should be lowered. 90+% control on a full continent is impossible. Maybe if a faction reaches ~70% territory, an alert is activated and the other two factions have x time to push them back below 50%... I dunno... Lastly, a quick thought about where alerts are headed once only 2 continents will be open at a time: If there are only 2 open continents and an alert is started on one... it will almost assuredly be about who has the upper hand when the alert begins. Fights will ultimately make it to the "choke points" where lattice lines converge (ie West Pass/Indar Com., Indar Ex/Quartz, Broken Arch/Crossroads, Regent Rock)... ya know, the places where the fights get bogged down and that will be the entirety of the alert... going back and forth at designated bases. With full continents, it will be rare that fights progress beyond these "choke bases".
I think they need to have alert CL because else continents going to be locked for days on low pop servers. And you should be able to take a locked continent back. PS1 soft lock sounds perfect for PS2.