Low pop factions are a problem

[Conq]

They need some love, not being able to take bases behind enemy lines is very debilitating when you're sitting around 19% population, have no resources to summon vehicles and are camped at your warpgate.

After a week of never seeing TR above 25% I left Metis for Themisto and now it's in the same state. It's especially rough on a lot of the new players I'm bringing in, as you can imagine. No certs, no resources, no useful AV/AI weapons and no way to gain anything.

It's okay for beta but shit like that will drive off new players come launch, or they'll just choose other factions and intensify the problem.

[Crator]

Beta Status and Upcoming Changes [9/25/12] (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/beta-status-and-upcoming-changes-9-25-12.24261/)

Population balancing

We've noticed the issues associated with population imbalances in the game. There are two primary things we're doing to address these issues in the near future:

1 - This week we'll be increasing the XP and Resource bonuses for under populated empires, as well as the threshold for when those bonuses are received.

2 - Next week we will be implementing zone and world level empire population caps. These will prevent a single over-populated empire from locking the other empires out of the zone / server.

[Conq]

The issue isn't really with one giant empire squashing the other two. It's with two massive empires zerging one. I don't want to see a low population cap but if they don't set it low enough, the third faction won't have enough people to even fill it and the problem will go on.

Metis had 15% TR earlier today with mostly even VS/NC, I don't think these changes will help it but we'll see.

[Crator]

Hard to say I guess. I mean it does say that currently there's no limit to how many people one empire can have, only a limit to how many people total, across all empires can be on the server.

[Conq]

Yeah, well I hope free character transfers will be in place come launch. Otherwise I might hold my Outfit back a week to see how the populations look.

Don't have any interest in playing on a side with less than 20% or greater than 50%. I suppose that's being real picky but the game is just more fun when it's balanced.

[Reizod]

It's currently a big problem on Leda. VS 18%, NC 22%, TR 60% :eek:

TR has VS and NC locked at their warp gates!

[Reizod]

The lulz. I screened that.:lol:

This is what beta is for, it is good that happened and Higby witnessed it happening. Leda didn’t have a pop problem, Leda had an Enclave win.

I think the mission system may help direct Empires. The NC had good pop but lacked direction. There was a NC Leda stream going on and they were arguing with each other on targets.

The Enclave feasted on two Empires with good players but bad leaders.

Dude, you call an outfit that Zergs all day a "win"? :huh:

[PhoenixDog]

1 - This week we'll be increasing the XP and Resource bonuses for under populated empires, as well as the threshold for when those bonuses are received.

OH THANK GOD! I'm glad I was getting +4%XP and +9% Resources while being camped in my warpgate tonight. Those bonuses are awesome when you can't buy a vehicle to kill anything, and you're getting 0 resources across the board.

[Gugabalog]

Yay! Soft population balancing!

[Ipimpnoobs]

I couldn't agree more. I actually felt sorry for the TR yesterday. The only thing they could do on my server was fight for the crown. They were locked at the warpgate by both VS and NC. Miraculously no matter what we did, we couldn't get them out. They kept yelling glorious crown or something.

Anyhow, I think that it really doesn't matter about vehicles & weapon imbalance. If you have more numbers, with semi competent leadership and a willingness to do as directed, crappy weapons/vehicles can still get the job done!

So do we blame the population balance on equipment 1 v 1 or is it lonewolf syndrome?

2cents

[Toppopia]

I couldn't agree more. I actually felt sorry for the TR yesterday. The only thing they could do on my server was fight for the crown. They were locked at the warpgate by both VS and NC. Miraculously no matter what we did, we couldn't get them out. They kept yelling glorious crown or something.

Anyhow, I think that it really doesn't matter about vehicles & weapon imbalance. If you have more numbers, with semi competent leadership and a willingness to do as directed, crappy weapons/vehicles can still get the job done!

So do we blame the population balance on equipment 1 v 1 or is it lonewolf syndrome?

2cents

One good thing about low pops is that the newb/lone wolf people will log off, leaving only the driven/outfit people that then makes the remaining population consist of decent people that manage to defy all odds. But now it will be more fun being underdog when we get hopefully something like 20% xp or something nice.

[Reizod]

If all it took was zerging then post pics of your outfit warpgating both empires.

That is a challenge to all large outfits, if all it takes is numbers then post pics of your outfit warpgating both empires. Im not just calling out Toxin, but AT, GOTR, 666th.

In my experience it hasnt happened till now, that is why we talking about. The Enclave called out all big outfits to face them in game. Outfits like yours Reizod, choose to make excuses on forumside then play The Enclave on Planetside.

Dude, are you trolling? Everyone knows that "they" Zerg and use numbers to push to gates. It's a numbers game man.

BTW, TE came to us/our server because they liked the challenge we VS gave them. :groovy: So not sure what "excuses" you are talking about... but I do smell a troll.

[SpottyGekko]

I agree there needs to be increased reward for being low pop faction. Presently it is more rewarding to switch to winning side to leech Auraxium.

I'd say that's the main problem, and I don't see it changing after launch.

Unless I'm mistaken, SOE are hoping to pull in a heap of casuals with the F2P model. I suspect that will mean a high % of lone-wolves and PuG squaddies. They will follow the auraxium, and will therefore swell the ranks of any faction that establishes a steady dominance on a particular server.

[Tatwi]

One good thing about low pops is that the newb/lone wolf people will log off, leaving only the driven/outfit people....

You're an idiot if you believe that is,

A. SOE's intentions for the game.
B. Good for the success and longevity of the game.

Hate to break it to you, but SOE isn't hoping that PS2 will be an uber niche game made just for a handful super nerds...

[Tiberius]

The whole resource model is going to be a continuing problem unless they put minimums in.

People will fight regardless of the incentive to control resources. I say you get a massive resource bonus (empire subsidy?:D) when you get under a certain amount of territory so you can pull a ton of shit and fight your way back.

[Tatwi]

The whole resource model is going to be a continuing problem unless they put minimums in.

People will fight regardless of the incentive to control resources. I say you get a massive resource bonus (empire subsidy?:D) when you get under a certain amount of territory so you can pull a ton of shit and fight your way back.

I thought at one point whole factions were going to have a cache of resources and that individual players were going to be able to use upto X% of those available resources for pulling vehicles, etc. I am pretty sure someone said something like that last year. In any case, for short term population imbalances something like that would smooth things out for the lower population sides.

They could make it like so,

Resources get added to the faction's pool every "tick" (5 minutes) that the faction owns a base. Let's say that TR has accumulated 10,000,000 units of Polymer, each player would then get between 0.08% - 0.25% of the total per hour. So in this case, people would get between 8,000 and 25,000 units per hour, depending on their battle rank and bonuses earned.

Now let's say that no faction could ever drop below having 500,000 resources in its pool.

With that being the case, even a battle rank 1 player whose faction has been warpgate locked long enough to burn through its entire stock pile of resources would still get 400 of each resource per hour, which sure beats no resources per hour.

With all that being said....

The simple way to do roughly the same thing would be to have the warpgates themselves grant 25 of each of the resources per tick, including AX, to all players of its faction who are active on the continent. Assuming ticks happen every 5 minutes, that's 300 resources per hour. It's not a lot, but once again it's more than none and it helps augment the gains made by taking a few nearby outposts.

[Tiberius]

Hopefully the pop cap will work. Once there is multiple continents the XP and resource incentives will bring some people from them, but I don't think it will be enough. If one empire is undermanned it's going to be a problem, especially since you can't switch empires on the same server.