4AM on a Tuesday morning.

[CutterJohn]

You work odd hours. Perhaps you live someplace weird. Whatever the reason, you are here, playing PS at 4 am on a tuesday morning, along with 20 or 30 other people. On maps designed for hundreds or thousands.

No matter how awesome prime time is, there will be times when populations are tiny, and the gameplay designed to support thousands will pretty much fail completely when trying to support dozens.

Aside from just abandoning your character for the night and switching to a different server, What can be done about this?

I have a few thoughts.

-As population dwindles, lock down continents for the night(this also serves to protect the land fought over that evening from a one sided 75% pop that happens frequently at these times).

-Taking the first a step further, Have a couple tiny maps that open up, suited for and designed specifically for populations in the sub 100 range.

-Somehow allow players to temporarily move their character to a more active server and play there, or combine the server populations.

[Senyu]

Combined US servers with Asian and there will always be someone playing :)


Lol, prob not gona happen

[Azren]

Actually they said it may happen. Something about having more servers at start, then limit them fast.

[Malorn]

I like the idea of scaling continents based on number of players. They could simply lock continents with few or no players on them and port those players to some other location (or simply make the hexes uncapturable and make it so no additional players can go there, and empire missions cancelled). Like a cave closing the warpgates could just be powered down. They can just start with the continents with the fewest players on them.

Its a good concept to help funnel people into the same area. PS isn't much fun when the pop is that low. It would be good to shepherd people to a handful of continents.

[Sifer2]

They actually seem like they wanted to go with 1 server with multiple planets if they are able to. The game has serious Eve online envy in more ways than one lol. Maybe its cause they don't want Dust 514 to have anything over on it.


Anyway about locking stuff down I dunno. Might be hard to strike a balance between giving late nighters even less of a reason to log on an stopping the 3 AM surprise raid for territory. One thing for sure I think they could do would be to have resource mines output less during the off peak hours. So that it matters more during prime time when people are really there to fight over it.

[CutterJohn]

Yeah, if they do go with one server eventually, that will be very nice, for more reasons than population health. It would certainly solve this little issue.

[Azren]

Yeah, if they do go with one server eventually, that will be very nice, for more reasons than population health. It would certainly solve this little issue.

Because everyone in Europa just loves playing on NA servers. We like LAG you know... One server/continent would work though

[dachlatte]

-As population dwindles, lock down continents for the night(this also serves to protect the land fought over that evening from a one sided 75% pop that happens frequently at these times).

-Taking the first a step further, Have a couple tiny maps that open up, suited for and designed specifically for populations in the sub 100 range.

that doesnt fly well with the sandbox sticker on the ps2 box and if you restrict people at night pops will sink even more

[SKYeXile]

YOU MAKE THE NETCODE GOOD SO I CAN PLAY ON THE US SERVERS! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[CutterJohn]

Because everyone in Europa just loves playing on NA servers. We like LAG you know... One server/continent would work though

Obviously one would hope they only do it if the lag is minimal. My ping was worse 8 years ago to east/west coast american servers than it is now to europe.

that doesnt fly well with the sandbox sticker on the ps2 box and if you restrict people at night pops will sink even more

And 'MASSIVE EPIC BATTLES!' Is obviously untrue in the wee hours of the morning.

Sandbox doesn't mean you get to do whatever the hell you want. If it improves gameplay, most will approve.

[dachlatte]

And 'MASSIVE EPIC BATTLES!' Is obviously untrue in the wee hours of the morning.

Sandbox doesn't mean you get to do whatever the hell you want. If it improves gameplay, most will approve.
i guess we have a very different understanding of what sandbox means then. i understand it in a sense like eve does and there you can do exactly whatever the hell you want.

[CutterJohn]

i guess we have a very different understanding of what sandbox means then. i understand it in a sense like eve does and there you can do exactly whatever the hell you want.

So. Built an outpost in a wormhole recently?

Flown your titan into Jita?

I bet you do a lot of reverse engineering of faction and officer loot too.

Found the blueprints yet to make rigs from materials instead of having to have the silly step of using scrap from a ships explosion?

Also, found the blueprints yet for implants?


Sandbox is a mindset, nothing more. If the game shipped with 2^256 continents that could be fought over at any time, I've little doubt people would want there to be some restrictions so that people can actually find a fight.

[dachlatte]

Sandbox is a mindset, nothing more. If the game shipped with 2^256 continents that could be fought over at any time, I've little doubt people would want there to be some restrictions so that people can actually find a fight.
you are absolutly right and i dont want to see 2^256 conts in ps2. but the point is i want the same x amount of conts anytime i log in.

[CutterJohn]

And I want a good fight when I log in. :)

[dachlatte]

valid point :D

[basti]

Switching servers is no solution, and one global server wont happen with release, if ever.

So, how to fix this? Simply: You cant, its impossible. You will always have times with more players online and times with less players. Now, it propably wont be as bad as we once had it, with only 1-2 pop locks during prime time and not even a half pop lock during off hours. Im pretty sure they aim for 6 pop locks with like 8 continents total, something like that. Yet that will still mean that during off hours you propably only have 1-2 pop locks and smaller fights elsewhere, and those smaller fights are the real dealbreaker, as they can turn out 90% vs 5% vs 5% rather quickly.

Thats why i dont understand the entire new concept of those uncappable bases on each cont. And the idea that capping a cont 100% is pretty much impossible.


But it depens how everything is set up. Maybe you cant just capture a territory by yourself, making lone ghost hacks impossible? who knows?

In any way, they already screwed that one up once, during planetsides beta. Remember, the original concept had no links between bases, allowing you to capture everything at every time. It seems to be back this time, and if it again doesnt work out, they will fix it again, just like back in the old days. :)

[CutterJohn]

Switching servers is no solution

Its a solution. If the server I play on has a consistently shitty population when I get to play(I work weekends overnight. My play time is the polar opposite of peak), I'll bail and go to a server that will when populations suck.

But its not an ideal solution.

So, how to fix this? Simply: You cant, its impossible.

#1 and #2 address this. A gameplay world suitable for several hundred or thousand is ill suited to dozens. The simplest solution is to tailor the world to the current population. BF2 maps had different sized versions of the same map, with more or less area being out of bounds. Its not an optimal sandbox solution, I agree, but it would put everyone together, in a suitable environment.

It seems to be back this time, and if it again doesnt work out, they will fix it again, just like back in the old days. :)

I doubt it will need fixing, unless they feel there are too many skirmishes and not enough battles. Its harder to cap stuff in the back(literally. Game mechanics will make it harder, not just logistics), and is easier for the defense to recover. Plus bases give no benefit.

[Warruz]

id rather see smaller continents designed for small groups/off hours

[headcrab13]

They could simply lock continents with few or no players on them and port those players to some other location (or simply make the hexes uncapturable and make it so no additional players can go there, and empire missions cancelled).

This is an awesome idea by the OP, and beautifully expanded upon by Malorn. You could simple scale the size of the playable hex map based on how many players were logged in. Obviously the entire planet would have contestable bases during prime times, but at night or on holidays when you only have a few hundred players online, you could gray out some of the hexes to funnel players into a central location, making the battles large and keeping the pace quick and fun, 24/7.

-HC13

[dachlatte]

maybe its not even needed to scale the conts down with the new mission system in place to consolidate the players. hopefully we get some more infos on teh mechanics

[Hamma]

I like the idea of scaling continents based on number of players. They could simply lock continents with few or no players on them and port those players to some other location (or simply make the hexes uncapturable and make it so no additional players can go there, and empire missions cancelled). Like a cave closing the warpgates could just be powered down. They can just start with the continents with the fewest players on them.

Its a good concept to help funnel people into the same area. PS isn't much fun when the pop is that low. It would be good to shepherd people to a handful of continents.

This.. great thoughts.

[RavenUSC3]

I remember playing late into the night a few times in the original game and even at 5am on Emerald, there were still more than enough people online to have a big battle. I'm hoping this game will have more players, so I don't see this as being a big issue. It really doesn't matter what time you're online though, there's going to be areas where no one is around. I think the tendency for most people is to go find the fight wherever that is.