Risk of Unbalanced Servers?

[HeatLegend]

Hey, was showing the game to a friend of mine and he brought something up that I hadn't given much thought. The conversation went sort of like this:

Him: "Well the servers are definitely going to get really unbalanced"

Me: "That's the fun of it though, even if you're on the smaller team it adds so much to the experience; being the oppressed team fighting a hopeless war"

Him: "Yeah but is it going to be fun in the long run? If you're outnumbered ten to one?"

Hadnt thought of the possibility of it becoming anywhere near that unbalanced, I still dont think it will but obviously all servers will have their dominating side.

Anyone thinks this is a possibility? Do the devs have a good way of keeping them more or less balanced, or is that too hard to really control? Maybe some PS1 vets know what it was like back then? Or should we simply wait and see after the game launches?

[Sledgecrushr]

Oh yeah its definitely a possibility. I am for server transfers done in an elegant way but I happen to be in the minority on that.

[HeatLegend]

Oh yeah its definitely a possibility. I am for server transfers done in an elegant way but I happen to be in the minority on that.

Server transfer could both profit and backfire on this as far as I know... A server gets more and more unbalanced- people of the smaller factions leave the server and it just turns more unbalanced- Or: People will want a challenge and go to more challenging servers resulting in greater balance.

[Klockan]

Game will most likely be the most unbalanced at off hours, but I think that these battles might be some of the most fun you have ever had as well. At primetime the server limits should balance things out. Also if you play at a server that is especially unbalanced it is no problem, just abandon one of the continents and focus your manpower on the other two. Since the player limit is per continent you just effectively upped your own playercount by 50% while the enemies can't bring in more. At worst you can abandon two continents and that will likely fix any faction balance problems that will ever appear.

[Sledgecrushr]

Server transfer could both profit and backfire on this as far as I know... A server gets more and more unbalanced- people of the smaller factions leave the server and it just turns more unbalanced- Or: People will want a challenge and go to more challenging servers resulting in greater balance.

A cople of things really, firstly you can transfer if you like to a server that is about full for awesome in your face fight fest.
You could transfer to a server that is half full and have some space and time to practice and or engage in smaller fights.
You could transfer to a server that needs your help because they are outnumbered and need your help.
Everyone in your chapter and its alliance could transfer to go raiding another server.
So many options to play. And to keep it honest every day you log on you will always be on your home server where certainly a good fight is happening.

[HeatLegend]

just abandon one of the continents and focus your manpower on the other two. Since the player limit is per continent you just effectively upped your own playercount by 50% while the enemies can't bring in more. At worst you can abandon two continents and that will likely fix any faction balance problems that will ever appear.

Hm, does the continent balance go 2000 players in total or 666ish/team cap?
I thought it was restricted so that no team could have more than a third of 2000 at a continent at once, but maybe it's not team-restricted but counted in total players overall...

[Klockan]

Hm, does the continent balance go 2000 players in total or 666ish/team cap?
I thought it was restricted so that no team could have more than a third of 2000 at a continent at once, but maybe it's not team-restricted but counted in total players overall...
Yup, which is why it works to withdraw from a continent. Lets say VS and NC got 1000 on a server each while TR got 2000, that means that TR can beat back VS and NC alone. However if VS and NC abandons a continent they suddenly got 500 per continent each against the 666 of TR which is basically fair, while the 666 that is left on the abandoned continent will have to log out and play elsewhere. Thus the players themselves got a strong tool to balance unbalanced servers and the dominating side would probably see people flee from that server since they would face too much queuing.

[DManTech]

This was a concern in PS1 as well, and by and large it didn't turn out to be much of an issue.

For one thing, PS1 included incentives to the outnumbered empires--primarily increased experience points. This worked to encourage players to choose the smaller factions.

The second mitigation is described above by the other posters. If your faction is outnumbered, you'll tend to pull out of frontline bases and potentially entire continents, focusing your manpower on the one spot where you stand the most chance of turning the tide. And speaking from experience, those battles where you only hold a few facilities and the attackers outnumber you 2-1 were some of the most fun gameplay experiences in PS1.

In short, I wouldn't worry about it until it's actually an issue, because I don't think it will be.

[wOOtbEEr]

I think there should be a cross-server mission system that helps take care of this. You always have your home server. But if it's primetime on your home server and your empire outnumbers the other two by at least 10% then players on that server could get missions to go reinforce servers where your empire has less population. Would be cool if it gave the missions to outfits first for the option to represent your server on an "away game".

Of course as much as i love this idea the 3 faction system balances it out quite nicely. If you are the biggest you will almost always be fighting 2 empires at once. And you probably aren't twice as big.

[Rivenshield]

Your friend is wrong, OP. When you're outnumbered ten to one you simply pick a smaller place to defend and make sure you've got an advanced medic with you. Like the gen room. Gen rooms are nice. :D

[Death2All]

It's a non issue. This game just has a way of balancing itself out when it comes to empires. They're split very evenly. People are always holding polls in regards to which faction people will play and it's always a very close 33/33/33 poll in most cases.

[Accuser]

Empire population incentives by continent. The lower the population, the more powerful you are, the more resources you gain per sector, and the more exp you get from actions.
/thread

[Soothsayer]

Your friend is wrong, OP. When you're outnumbered ten to one you simply pick a smaller place to defend and make sure you've got an advanced medic with you. :D

That's really great to say and everything, but I think that a comprehensive penalty/reward system that facilitates underpopulated empires regaining healthy and competitive populations would be more useful.

Maybe SOE should commit to heading off the problem by offering discounts in the station store for purchases made by the underpopulated empire.

Experience incentives are only a short term solution. What is needed is something to attract players to a server that is ailing.

If a faction is chronically under-represented there needs to be a look at what is going on that makes people either not choose their empire or to leave it after choosing. This could be as simple as outlining core gameplay faction philosophies as opposed to advertising based on the faction's political (and largely irrelevant) policies.

[SUBARU]

Just because your out numbered, doesnt mean you are toast.It just means you as an empire have to play smarter.

[HeatLegend]

It's a non issue. This game just has a way of balancing itself out when it comes to empires. They're split very evenly. People are always holding polls in regards to which faction people will play and it's always a very close 33/33/33 poll in most cases.

Yeah, but that doesnt mean that each server is 33/33/33 or close to it, but it's definitely a good sign anyway.

Thanks for all the replies guys, I'll have something to tell/explain to him the next time we meet :)

EDIT: Please continue the discussion if there is more to add :)

[Sledgecrushr]

Theres a flip side to this as well, imagine you are with the dominant empire and the fight is on a continent that is pop locked. Will you be happy being stuck with hacking empty bases?

[GLaDOS]

We really need to wait until at least open beta, maybe the full release to see if this is true. Until then we can only speculate.

[ratfusion]

An earlier poster had it right, this same concern applied to PS1, and it turned out to be a non-issue. For the most part it seemed to naturally work itself out (to the surprise of many), and the incentive system seemed to tweak it just right.

There actually seemed to be a roughly equal inherent draw to each faction. I think we were all shocked that so many people wanted to play with those assholes in XX empire, or wear the ugly colors of YY empire. I expected my ZZ empire to have 80% population on looks alone.

Follow the PS1 model and there is no reason it shouldn't work as well this time.

[Symmenix]

The best part is when the two underpopulated factions are fighting the overpopulated one, it forces the overpop'd one to spread thinner.

[Eyeklops]

You would be amazed at how well the empires were designed to keep an even population. When the population is medium-to-high, the largest imbalance I can ever remember seeing was only about 5 or 6 %. Now late at night, when the pops get low, it's a mixed bag. One day it will be Vanu with high pop, the next NC, and other TR. I do however remember many, many months of low pop nights dominated by TR population, on the order of 50% TR. Also, what some people have mentioned above, when one empire has a serious majority of the pop, the other two will tag team the "big guy". IMHO, this is the primary reason having 3 factions works much better than 2.

[MCYRook]

There are 3 factions, and one thing that does is it alleviates pop imbalances - much less of issue than if you have just 2.

In PS1 on Werner, there was a time when the TR would pretty consistently have 38-45% global pop. But they didn't dominate the world map all that much, because there still were 62-55% combined NC+VS to oppose them. Granted, it wasn't super for NC/VS to have to mostly fight TR day in, day out, and sometimes it would be one of the smaller empires getting double-teamed by the TR and the 3rd empire. But eventually, it gets to a point when the 3rd empire has to turn against the dominant one again.

It only really becomes a problem when one empire gets >50% consistently. That would be more than 1.5x than what they ideally should have, tho, and the law of large numbers should prevent that.

[ringring]

Why did your friend say the server will be unbalanced? I assume he means the population split between the different empires?

There are several responses.
Firstly, there are three empires. If one becomes dominant they will tend to be the 1 in a 2 onto 1 situation. This is the reason for three empires.

Second, did he say what he did because he thought he thought one empire looked fantastic but at least one of the other two didn't? Well, everyone will have a favourite but these will tend to balance out.

Third, if imbalances exist but aren't rediculous this gives more opportunity for empire wide strategy. Strange as it may sound.

Fourth, 3 empires on one continent on the server isn't unknown territory. Planetside has been doing it successfully for years and plateny of ex-players understand how it works and how to play.

Fifth, there are ways for the devs to give minority empires a boost, such as a dynamic xp %age boost per kill to the smallest.

In short, it will be fine.

[Ivam Akorahil]

Balance is for wussies, in world history NO battle and NO war ever were balanced

should get used to enemies outnumbering and worst case scenarios, practise your skills, get in outfits, go military and tactical. like history shows with the 300 spartans (it were actualy around 1000) killing a total of 230000 persians, its obvious that quality > quantity

if one keep losing then something is wrong with them and not the server or the enemy beeing OP

my 2 cents

[Wrath]

from what I remember from playing PS1 most of the time imbalances happened when one of the heavy weapons was viewed as being the better I can remeber a few times vanu getting a surge in players during the day they where trying to balance the lasher.

but these people who jump and change empires arent much of an issue because they tend to be low skilled players looking to gain a bit of an advantage.

[KTNApollo]

Hopefully there's a pop limit on continents so you can't have more than 666.33 players from a single faction on continent.

[Carnage]

Higby said there was the possibility of an empire having more then 33.33% of the pop, whatever it is, no team should be able to have more then 50% of the pop, I suspect 40-45% will be max, meaning they will still be outnumbered by the combined total of the other 2 empires... short alliances are not out of the question... and anyway, a single night of war with a push from players on another continent could quickly reverse any unbalance, shit could literally change in 24 hours as ppl log off and on...

[KTNApollo]

log off

PlanetSide

wat.

[Boomhowser]

end of the day thiers no point worrying about this until game goes live,

However should it then go imbalanced I hope that they dont start allowing server transfers as it creates more problems than it solves.
Majority of playerbase that transfered would head to where their faction is winning which tends to create larger disparity in populations and has been to known to mess up Servers that didnt require transfers in the first place.
Sure we all have noble ideas of how people would flock to help out their brethren but face it we are dealing with human nature so not gonna happen :/

[Carnage]

wat.

log off;
Verb 1. log off - exit a computer; "Please log off before you go home"

PlanetSide;
PlanetSide is a massively-multiplayer online first-person-shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 20, 2003.

PlanetSide chronicles the efforts of three factions as they fight for territorial control over ten different continents on the planet Auraxis. Players take on the role of individual soldiers fighting for one of the three factions within the game, and can specialize in various fields such as combat vehicle crewman, infantry, invisible infiltrator or a variety of combat support roles such as combat medic or combat engineer. The game is played primarily in a first person perspective, with the option of third-person.


Elmo needs more time spent at sesame street me thinks...
;)

[Loco]

Higby said there was the possibility of an empire having more then 33.33% of the pop, whatever it is, no team should be able to have more then 50% of the pop, I suspect 40-45% will be max, meaning they will still be outnumbered by the combined total of the other 2 empires... short alliances are not out of the question... and anyway, a single night of war with a push from players on another continent could quickly reverse any unbalance, shit could literally change in 24 hours as ppl log off and on...

While I agree that no team SHOULD have more than 50%.. that seems like it would be hard to enforce. Lets say an outfit has a raid night. They have 40 members that show up and try to take on an empty continent.

So at that point they have 100% of the pop. Then one NC shows up. Would the 40 person outfit be forced to purge 39 members?

[EnderGraff]

Lets say NC and TR are underpopulated and Vanu have the most people. It would be really cool if NC and TR formed a semi-alliance to push back Vanu for a few hours. The combined assault on exclusively Vanu would be too much to stop.

At least until a NC shot a TR in the back of the skull and everything would go back to normal :lol:

[Loco]

Lets say NC and TR are underpopulated and Vanu have the most people. It would be really cool if NC and TR formed a semi-alliance to push back Vanu for a few hours. The combined assault on exclusively Vanu would be too much to stop.

At least until a NC shot a TR in the back of the skull and everything would go back to normal :lol:

That happens now in Planetside 1. You'll see a base with both factions on either side. They'll focus on the base and not the other invading faction. Of course that's when the BEP flies and much fun us had by all.

[Zenben]

I'm wondering if it would work to use a system where you log in, select your character, THEN select your server, rather than the other way around as with all other MMO's. This would make people go to the server that needs them because they want the exp benefits (or whatever system they choose to implement). To make sure that people aren't jumping around constantly for benefits, maybe put a cooldown on it like there was a cooldown on switching empires in PS1, or you could make it so that you retain the benefits for 3 hours (or whatever) after you choose the server no matter how the population changes.

[Loco]

I'm wondering if it would work to use a system where you log in, select your character, THEN select your server, rather than the other way around as with all other MMO's. This would make people go to the server that needs them because they want the exp benefits (or whatever system they choose to implement). To make sure that people aren't jumping around constantly for benefits, maybe put a cooldown on it like there was a cooldown on switching empires in PS1, or you could make it so that you retain the benefits for 3 hours (or whatever) after you choose the server no matter how the population changes.

I think they have already said one character per server.

You're suggestion does have merit, however. This would make it harder for outfits to organize. Also I don't think it would work with the resource mechanic they have in place.

[Xyntech]

That's not usually how it works. It's pretty much always the 2 high pop empires gang up on the lesser.

I think the lack of zerg is actually hurting the current Planetside that way. Early on when populations were higher, the underpopulated empires tended to fight the overpopulated one more often.

I think it's because the zerg is so stupid, that they just attack whatever is right in front of them. Ironically, this simple mindedness actually works in their empires favor in this case, because the more strategic players if left unchecked tend to gravitate towards fights that they know they can win. This inevitably means attacking the weaker foe, which then leaves the overpopulated empire to come kick your ass once the weakest empire is out of the picture.

So either we need the majority of the strategic players to start getting even smarter and thinking about the long term repercussions of their decisions (never going to happen), or we need a zerg to keep things in check.

I've always thought that strategic Planetside players always work best off of the backs of the zerg anyways.

[Baneblade]

This may or may not be a problem. I think outfits stacking whatever the new 'Gemini' will be will be a worse problem.

[Carnage]

While I agree that no team SHOULD have more than 50%.. that seems like it would be hard to enforce. Lets say an outfit has a raid night. They have 40 members that show up and try to take on an empty continent.

So at that point they have 100% of the pop. Then one NC shows up. Would the 40 person outfit be forced to purge 39 members?

well no, 100% pop (total population) is 2000... 40 players is 2% of the pop...
say you have an empty continent, and the max % any one team can have is 45%, if 900 TR players (45%) log on to the continent, no more TR can join it, but the reaming 1100 slots (55%) can be filled by a mix of VS & NC, so there could potentially be a population of 900 TR, 900 NC and 200 VS on a single continent... and the VS would still win...

[Loco]

well no, 100% pop (total population) is 2000... 40 players is 2% of the pop...
say you have an empty continent, and the max % any one team can have is 45%, if 900 TR players (45%) log on to the continent, no more TR can join it, but the reaming 1100 slots (55%) can be filled by a mix of VS & NC, so there could potentially be a population of 900 TR, 900 NC and 200 VS on a single continent... and the VS would still win...

Ahh.. so it's not % of current pop but % of total pop. Have we heard anything on continent caps?

[Xyntech]

Ahh.. so it's not % of current pop but % of total pop. Have we heard anything on continent caps?

Just that they are higher than 33% and (implicitly) lower than 50%. So 40% - 45% seems a safe range to assume. Higby gave an example and tossed 40% around as a hypothetical number. They may not have nailed it down yet, and it can presumably be easily changed at any time.

[Timithos]

Hm, does the continent balance go 2000 players in total or 666ish/team cap?
I thought it was restricted so that no team could have more than a third of 2000 at a continent at once, but maybe it's not team-restricted but counted in total players overall...

It's 2000 cap per continent only - no empire cap. (and 6000 per server). These numbers are of course subject to change. So you will have empires that can dominate with well over 50% population for relatively short periods of time. If you think about, if you show up on an empty continent, you're 100% of the population. That will be much harder to do in PS2 when only 3 continents will exist at launch, and there is more of a "frontline" on each continent versus one bottlenecked facility to hack into from the warpgate.

[The Degenatron]

Not only should empire imbalance be possible, but it will be necessary.

The eb and flow of empire populations will allow for the shifting territiory control.

If the servers pops stay perfectly balanced, you'll have a three-way stagnation.

[Xyntech]

Not only should empire imbalance be possible, but it will be necessary.

The eb and flow of empire populations will allow for the shifting territiory control.

If the servers pops stay perfectly balanced, you'll have a three-way stagnation.

But continents also won't be poplocked at all times, so an empire who only has 45% of the total population cap, or 900 players, would far outnumber the other 700 players split across the other two empires on a continent that was only at 80% of it's total capacity.

[Timithos]

While I agree that no team SHOULD have more than 50%.. that seems like it would be hard to enforce. Lets say an outfit has a raid night. They have 40 members that show up and try to take on an empty continent.

So at that point they have 100% of the pop. Then one NC shows up. Would the 40 person outfit be forced to purge 39 members?

No, you would not be forced to purge your members, nor would the game auto-spawn enemy forces to balance the area/continent. This is not a FPS arena-type game. This is not a 32vs32, or 64vs64 arena. You've got to divorce yourself of that mentality. So if you show up on a relatively empty continent with 40 enemies from one empire, 0 fromthe other, and you're alone, you better be doing some cloaked infiltration, or back-hacking the other side of the continent, or you'll get owned. Any friendly reinforcements that come will be any player's choice, or mission generated incentives.

Now there could be an Instant Action feature in PS2 similar to PS1, where players can instantly spawn into some type of combat occuring somewhere on the 3 continents assigned by the game, BUT, 40 vs 1 is not much "action" to trigger this. I haven't read if they're including this feature in PS2.

[Mirror]

I would actually like to see incentives return (I think I saw a SS that contained them a few days ago) but instead of giving the under popped empire benefits like HP, acquisition timers etc I would like to see them given to the empire with the larger pop.
-Increase vehicle and max timers
-Increase respawn times
-Increase spawn on squad timers
-Increase the timer of resources
-Increase base node times

And so on.

[The Degenatron]

But continents also won't be poplocked at all times, so an empire who only has 45% of the total population cap, or 900 players, would far outnumber the other 700 players split across the other two empires on a continent that was only at 80% of it's total capacity.

Exactly! And that's a GOOD thing. It means they push their territory out, taking land away from the other two empires, and moving the fighting to different zones, giving all of the players present the chance to play in places they might not often see.

And that's fine, because population imbalances with flow back and forth between empires.

Don't assume that one empire will alway have a monopoly on man-power, because that doesn't even bear out in Planetside 1 today, where the Vanu obviously have a larger standing population but still get out numbered on the server on a regular basis.

[Raymac]

I would actually like to see incentives return (I think I saw a SS that contained them a few days ago) but instead of giving the under popped empire benefits like HP, acquisition timers etc I would like to see them given to the empire with the larger pop.
-Increase vehicle and max timers
-Increase respawn times
-Increase spawn on squad timers
-Increase the timer of resources
-Increase base node times

And so on.

Not a bad idea, but people generally like buffs more than nerfs. So given the choice, it is probably better to buff the underpopulated empire.

[ArmedZealot]

What is wrong with the current XP bonus and penalties based on server pops?

[Deadeye]

This may or may not be a problem. I think outfits stacking whatever the new 'Gemini' will be will be a worse problem.

Yeah. That, at least, is going to happen. It happened in SWTOR where the "server to be on" was/is Fatman thus what you get is one very populated server at the cost of all the other servers being boring and/or empty because everyone wants to be on the one server.

[The Loverator]

Risk of Unbalanced Servers?


Sorry for being so honest, but:

1.) Suck it up. There is no real Balance all the Time. : 3


2.) Imagine the heroic Noble-Six Feeling! Fighting against a hopeless Number of Villain's. (*ggg*)


3.) Even on "balanced" Servers, it is simply impossible for every Player to be online at the same Time as "every other Player" of the same Faction,

s~oo, that leads you back to Point 1. Please suck it up, again! : 3 xPPP
It's not meant to offend you. It's just only a Fact.




greetings, LV. :wave:

[Hmr85]

Some of the best fights I have had has been when we where outnumbered 3 to 1. There is nothing wrong with this. It just means more targets of in the field to shoot at.

[Xyntech]

Exactly! And that's a GOOD thing. It means they push their territory out, taking land away from the other two empires, and moving the fighting to different zones, giving all of the players present the chance to play in places they might not often see.

And that's fine, because population imbalances with flow back and forth between empires.

Don't assume that one empire will alway have a monopoly on man-power, because that doesn't even bear out in Planetside 1 today, where the Vanu obviously have a larger standing population but still get out numbered on the server on a regular basis.

Right, but there's no need to have empires be able to have much more than 45% of a continents maximum population cap to achieve that.

Remember that if a continent has nobody else on it, a single VS will bring the total current population up to 100% VS. So percentage of current population is irrelevant.

The reason to have a percentage cap on the total population limit of a continent is so that one empire can't rush in and fill up every slot on a continent, leaving the other empires fucked if they want to try to go in and defend.

At a minimum, empires shouldn't be able to have more than 50% of the population. If TR has all of the territory on x continent with nobody fighting there (uncertain how often this extreme scenario would ever actually happen in PS2), and then NC rushes in and fills up every spot that they can, the TR should at least be given the hypothetical option to evenly match their numbers.

Of course, with 3 factions, a few VS may decide to crash the party and fill a few of those slots, leaving the TR at a population disadvantage, but at least the NC wouldn't have more players than the TR and VS combined. They will still have a population advantage in the sense that the TR and VS may fight each other as well.

This is where something like a cap of 40% - 45% of the population makes sense. The TR and NC could both field their maximum populations on a continent, while still leaving enough room for 200 - 400 VS to come in and alter the dynamic of the battle. While 666 vs 666 vs 666 would definitely become very stale, 900 vs 900 vs 200 would be very dynamic and interesting.

The point being that there has to be a balance. An even split of the populations is boring and rigid, while allowing one side to have half or more of the maximum population is too open to abuse.

I'm pretty sure that the developers are already on top of it though.

[The Degenatron]

This is where something like a cap of 40% - 45% of the population makes sense. The TR and NC could both field their maximum populations on a continent, while still leaving enough room for 200 - 400 VS to come in and alter the dynamic of the battle. While 666 vs 666 vs 666 would definitely become very stale, 900 vs 900 vs 200 would be very dynamic and interesting.

I see where you are going with that. I was not understanding the concern.

I think that a firm 33% cap for each empire is the best. Just because the populations are limited to exactly 1/3 for each empire doesn't mean you're going to have those player slots filled out.

I certainly don't like the idea of two empires being able to monopolize the majority of player slots. Every empire should always have a chance to field an equal fighting force - whether they actually do or not.

[Xyntech]

That may be necessary if they go with permanent footholds on every continent at the start. I'm still hoping for something a little more dynamic at launch.

What I think would be fine is an even global population cap. So if 3 continents can support 6000 players, than there can only ever be 2000 VS spread across the 3 continents, but that there can be 33% on one continent, 30% on another, and 37% on the third.

I like the devs idea about everyone always having the option to fight on all of the continents, but I don't think it necessarily needs to be even population caps or have permanent footholds to do it. 400 vs 800 vs 800, the 400 can still take a lot of territory and do a lot of damage. But if there are permanent footholds for every empire on all three continents, it would seem kind of lame to get locked out, unable to defend the area around your foothold with less players than the other empire(s) had.

[Rivenshield]

I think that a firm 33% cap for each empire is the best. Just because the populations are limited to exactly 1/3 for each empire doesn't mean you're going to have those player slots filled out.

Bear in mind that even when and if two or three empires have the same continent poplocked, they're going to be sloshing around this giant-ass map. Every single fight you get in is going to be unequal, unless two empires sort of consensually square off at a single location and start whaling the shit out of each other. And that will be rare, because the name of the game here is resource control.

In PS1 we know that even a 10%-20% pop advantage is irresistible.... UNLESS you're in a tower, gen room, etc. I strongly suspect we're going to see more chokepoints, walls, shields, doors, and other defensive features installed by the time beta ends. Because nine times in ten, the (much) smaller force is going to need them so they can defend what they just grabbed. Nobody will consent to hang around and get steamrollered from four different directions. That's not fun.

The old move-the-zerg-around-the-lattice strategy is going the way of the dodo bird. So is the last-stand-in-the-gen-room tactic. I'm not worried about unbalanced *servers.* I'm a bit concerned about every single *fight* you get in being unbalanced. Badly.

[Klockan]

The point being that there has to be a balance. An even split of the populations is boring and rigid, while allowing one side to have half or more of the maximum population is too open to abuse.

Why is an even split boring and rigid? Isn't the point with this game that due to the size of the continents any position you are in will have imbalanced odds, either the enemies outnumbers you or you outnumber the enemy. Then most of the time the server wont even be full so your scenarios could exist anyway.

Also it would feel very bad for a vanu soldier if you can't log in since the vile TR and the greedy NC just took up basically the whole server. Maxing out at 35% is way better than maxing out at 40%.