Losing side will be discouraged...

[MrVicchio]

I have noted, based on responses ot my thread about a nuke event in game... a line of thought that is.. bothering me a tad here.

It seems some people are afriad of a dominate empire, and the effect that is going to have on the losing side. in my example, one side would get to nuke another sides base, just one, and take it. That seem to provoke fears of demoralizing the oppostition.

How to word this...

If anyone thinks the servers are going to be balanced, your nutz. there will be a dominate empire, period. Its just human nature. Too many people don't want to play on the losing side. If say one Empire starts to win, new people will start playing THAT empire, unless there is a cap in place, but even then, one empire is gonna be percieved as the Dominate empire, and people will flock there.

Some one is gonna lose, and I think you will see a few situations where on a server, one side tottaly looks like the french during WWII and loses VERY fast. Its going to happen.

what then to do about it?

I say nadda. Why do anything about it? They already have stated a few examples of enticements they will offer to people to switch empires to the underdog, there are those of us who LIKE the challenge, and use the loss to get fired up to make a come back.

Look, I think the big thing here is, there are gonna be losers in this fight, big time losers. And there are gonna be big time winners. Don't worry about it, eventually it will even out, and then a new power house will arise. Any gamer that quits because his side in a fluid game like this is losing, would find some other reason to flee just as fast.

If your side gets its but handed to it, then use that to motivate yourself and others to return the favor vistited upon you. Otherwise, don't even bother playing.

War isn't nice, not even the Virtual ones....

[Hamma]

Well they will not let an empire be anihilated, because thats not what the game is about. Its about a constant war, for example the home bases cannot be capped or attacked.

There will be things placed that take the heat off of an empire that is loosing badly. For example if you start attacking an area that already has a high level of friendlys you dont get many BEPs or CEPs. So why keep attacking it?

[�io]

Well as you said some of us like the challenge of joining a losing team. I know i won't be switching teams to go to the winning side, far from it.

But this raises an interesting point. Can your player decide to switch camps? I would hate to lose my character i leveled up for months just because i have to switch to the losing team to have some fun.
:rock:

[MrVicchio]

Yeah, I think it was the PSI dev chat correct me if i am wrong, that addressed this. You CAN switch if one empire is losing bad, that would help keep the populations even.

[Validuz]

As far as I understand it... theres actually a /curve/ so-to-speak so people will be encouraged to switch to the losing empire because their BEPs will go up faster..

correct me if im wrong.

[Hamma]

In a sense you are correct. More battles, more enemies = more BEP's and CEP's

I think empire switching will not be done on the fly tho, like you cant switch in the morning then go back in the evening :p

[Tobias]

Guess im lucky that im Vanu and Vanu are going to win.

[Lexington_Steele]

The losing side won't have it that tough.

Which ever side is losing will probably have the smallest front to worry about. It will also see a greater % of its troops in a smaller area. It will have a smaller percentage of the continents, but it will still be able to win a good amount of battles.

[jamikey]

Good post. I don't believe that most people would flock towards the winners. I know i wouldn't at least. ANd you are right there will be huge losers, and even bigger winners. I've been keeping up on alot of future games that are in beta right now. And one of the games is called shadow bane. A huge faction is trying to dominate the Whole darn game ,but all the little one are rising aganist it and causing huge probs for the big one. I think maybe we might see allainces formed for a certain battle ( if thats aloud).

[MrVicchio]

I am basing all of this of course, from FPS expeirence, and DAoC, the only MMORPG so far that has similarites.

Look at CS or DoD, if the server doesnt have auto balance, there are always people that unbalance the teams in favor of the dominating side.

[Flashingfish]

Dosen't anyone know that the losing side gets bonuses? :rolleyes:

And believe me, you will rarely have a huge battle, if you take into consideration the size of the continents. If you do a mission, it's not guaranteed enemies will be there. And it's even less likely that the whole of another empire's men will be there.

It'll be fair enough.

[Hamma]

Originally posted by Flashingfish
Dosen't anyone know that the losing side gets bonuses?

This is true :D

[CrazyMike]

Probably just a case of poor wording but..

If say one Empire starts to win, new people will start playing THAT empire, unless there is a cap in place, but even then, one empire is gonna be percieved as the Dominate empire, and people will flock there.

If there is a cap.. how exactly will people STILL flock there?

Oh and just for the record..

Yeah, I think it was the PSI dev chat correct me if i am wrong, that addressed this.

The dev chat was organized by me on behalf of the whole community, not PSI. It just so happened at the time that PSI was the only place to post about it.

As for the topic..

In a game like DAoC you did see a lot of people flocking to one side when it was perceived that realm was winning. It was more than that though.. they quite often flocked there because it was also percieved that realm was the better one. You see when you talk about ballance you need to talk about more than just the amount of people. The game itself has to be balanced well and it needs to be that way right out of the box. It took DAoC far too long to ballance the realms.

PS has something that DAoC didn't though. (Not sure about now since I only played the first 8 months or so after release) In PlanetSide they are going to offer up incentives to the sides that are lower in player population. What this is going to mean in the actual game no one truely knows. It may mean that instead of flocking to winning empires, they flock to the losing ones instead.. Only time will tell.


CrazyMike

[MrVicchio]

I ment that new people, who read online that X Empire is teh bomb will find a server that hasn't been capped. Sometimes I get carried away whilst typing.

Balance of course is the key, i didn't want to mention DAoC because the DAoC solution to realm balance was to NERF one realm and ENHANCE another. Which, is one reason among many I quit that POS game.

I have the highest hopes for PS and please dont get me wrong, I just have a principle that makes me seem rather crass.

"People Suck"

Plain and Simple.


BTW I just remembered reading that Dev Chat somewhere. Props to you for making it happen. :D

[Splatter]

I can't speak for everyone else, but if my empire is dominating, I'd actually want to switch empires. My reasons why:

1. I like a challenge

2. More enemies to kill (if the winning side has more players)

3. More leadership opportunities / CEP's (if the side is doing so badly, they'll want a fresh leader)


I'd suspect most of the top-notch players would want to switch sides too, because once that losing side gets back up to the par, they'll have gained an enormous amount of B/CEP's in the process.


BTW, this is my first post here, although I've been ghosting around a few forums for a couple weeks. Some info about me:

Been playing FPS's on-line since doom 2 on a 9600 baud modem :)

Played competitively in a vast amount of games in different leagues/competitions, mostly FPS, some strategy.

Can't wait to see how this game turns out! :)

[�io]

:stupid:
:p
Except CEPs aren't my top priority, i prefer to frag than plan/lead.
But this reminds me of a question i had, will CEPs give you anything else other than leader bonuses?

[Ir0nRaven]

IMO, there won't be a dominating empire. One might dominate for a week, but then new players will join the underdogs, populations will shift, the winners will get overconfident, two empires might team up against the hgher one, etc. It will cause a never ending struggle... shifting, rising to the top, and back down again.

[Firemoth]

Originally posted by Dio
Well as you said some of us like the challenge of joining a losing team.

I'm the same as Dio, I've never switched teams / sides if it was losing, I find that it's rude.

--Firemoth

[�io]

Well i usually switch to be on the losing team.
More challenge = more fun

:)

[Lexington_Steele]

I know the devs have specifically mentioned allowing people to switch to a faction that is doing poorly.

Did they mention anything about keeping certs you have earned if you switch? (who will want to drop to noob status?)

Also if you do get to keep your certs does that mean you can pick up faction specific weapons?

[TroubleMagnet]

I think you are all missing one big thing that will help balence things out. There are THREE factions! This will mean that if one side starts to get a clear advantage in territory the other two will most likely have a truce and gang up on the top dog until they have taken them down a notch.

You really don't even need a formal truce for this since the top dog will have a lot of the good outposts that you will be more tempted to attack. Hopefully the built in incentives will keep one side from getting so huge that it can take on both of the other ones at once.

[Lt AntiSmile]

3500 ppl per server
thats
1150ish per side

10 contenents
thats
115 ppl per contenent

now thats a perfect world

closer/neutral contents will have more of a side
so i don't see anyone winning a two front war eather

[Airlift]

I doubt I'll want to swtich sides whether my empire is dominating or being dominated. I'm going to choose my faction based on the outfit I'm in, empire backstory, and look & feel of the sides.

[Zarparchior]

WHY hasn't anyone mentioned the most obvious yet?

There will be bonuses for being on a team with quite a few less than their counterparts. In the most extreme case, the devs said their would be health modifications (i.e. something like instead of having 100 hp, you'd have 120 hp... or so I assume that's what they meant by that). So if one team is that greatly outnumbered, they will have a cheap advantage anyway. :p

But I doubt we need to worry about that. Like many have said before, there are 3 (count em', 3) empires! And if that beefily big empire focuses their efforts on just one team, then it would leave them wide open for attacks on their other front. Because, there always WILL be at least two fronts you're fighting, if not more...

So no worries there guys. Just sit back, relax, and wait for the info to come in. :cool:

[Enkidu]

I think it all depends on what kind of weapon balance, vehicle balnace, etc... they have bettwen each side. The more balance, the more conflict; the more conflict, the more often that bases will switch hands.

Also, it would be interesting to know what they plan on maxing out the servers at, as in how may per server. If PS is supposed to be as big as they say, i would suspect that 3500 per server is not a whole lot. Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Lt AntiSmile]

3500 in an area this sise, isn't alot, Ac1(asherons call) had 2K and you could wander for ever and not see a sole for a while, but even in the mid of noware, you'd see someone once in awhile.

[Enkidu]

True, but Im talking about total possible. If the server holds 3500 people, your not going to see 3500 people on all the time. mabye 1/2 or a 1/3 at any given time.

I can't seem to find the comparison at this time, but there was something about the size of the 10 continents being about 8 sq. miles (I am probably wrong about this, trying to remember exactly). If thats true, that is pretty large. having 1000 people on a server with that big of an area, wouldn't fill up that fast. I guess it all depends of how big the world is.

[Hamma]

Id imagine they have a goal in mind, but they probably wont set the server limits until after stress testing.

[Flashingfish]

WHY hasn't anyone mentioned the most obvious yet?

Actually, I did :rolleyes:

I don't think two empires will make any truces; because honestly I can't see how one empire will have an "advantage" over another; it's been said that the game will be based on skill and nothing else, so if there are "bonuses" for the "losing" empire, they shouldn't affect your battle performance.

[Enkidu]

I would see temporary "understandings" to eliminate a stronger opponent. this happend in daoc sometimes. Then the 2 sides would turn on eachother. I would expect similar situations in PS

[Splatter]

Ohh Enkidu beat me to it...

In DAOC some of the servers had 2 of the 3 races beating on the other. The ones that were losing got hammered and lost all their relics (I think). Eventually though the 2 sides turned on each other, and due to greed, things got pretty much up to par between the 3.

If this game becomes successful, expect game forums to have a lot to do with opposing faction truces. Actually forums will probably pick up to a post per minute or so cause it's pretty slow here right now.

[Unregistered]

You should have been here 2 weeks ago if you thnk it's slow here right now.

[NapalmEnima]

I don't think it will be possible to organize a total cease-fire between to factions.

With all the people coming and going it'll take a none-too-minor miracle to get everyone to lay off SIDE A, while everyone attacks SIDE B.

Someone will go mess with the wrong base... and then your supposed "allies" will see it as planned agression on your part, and act accordingly.

And then the excretia hits the fan.

I'd be shocked to see such an agreement last 24 hours. That's still enough time to take away a base or three, but then it's back to business as usual.

[MrVicchio]

This is an FPS at heart, thus the FPS mentality is gonna permeate the game. Some one will ALWAYS go off.

Ever try to play soccor on CS_RIO? Talk about near immpossible to get everyone to put thier weapons down and jsut play. Same thing here.

WOULD be nice to see, bnut only the larger outfits will pull it off, there will be rogues that hear about this and take advantage of the situation.

[Hamma]

Originally posted by Unregistered
You should have been here 2 weeks ago if you thnk it's slow here right now.

He speaks the truth heh, I cant keep up sometimes now :eek:

[Unregistered]

I used to try and start a new thread everyday just so we'd have things to post about, and now I don't need to since everyone else is starting new ones for me :D

[Tolvy]

Think of it this way...

If an empire is winning, all you have to do is have the other two empires ally against the winning one.

[�io]

Originally posted by Unregistered
I used to try and start a new thread everyday just so we'd have things to post about, and now I don't need to since everyone else is starting new ones for me :D

My pleasure. :D