Population Inbalance

capiqu · 2013-05-16, 08:52 PM

I really hate it when I log on to find my empire is less then 20% of the world population. This causes me to almost always just play for less then a few minutes if I play at all.
I have been thinking that a possible solution could be that any server who's anyone faction falls to under 25% of the total world population becomes an open server. This would mean that if the TR fall to under 25% of total pop then the server becomes open to TR from other servers. So TR players from Waterson can then log into Mattherson to help balance out the Population. Once the TR population is over 30% then the server closes again. So all TR from other servers will return to their original servers once they log off.
I think many players and outfits would enjoy this since it would allow them to play their main characters or outfits on other servers. This would offer them a new experience of playing with or against players or outfits on other servers.
Anyway just wondering what your idea of this would be.

Assist · 2013-05-16, 09:44 PM

Anything to get the TR off of Waterson is a great thing. They're like cockroaches though, get rid of one and two more replace it.

No one wants to go play on a server with low population though, so not sure why TR would leave their unfair advantage on Waterson to go have an unfair disadvantage. There's no incentive to play on a low population faction, and it seems that the developers have no idea how to solve this.

Overall I agree though, I don't play specifically because of the population imbalance on Waterson. Unfortunately it's been this way for so many *months* on Waterson that I'm just sick of it.

AThreatToYou · 2013-05-16, 09:50 PM

Yeah, VS need players on Waterson.
I'd play VS if I wassn't shoehorned into farming certs for my NC, and I barely play enough hours to get my 5 ribbons anyway.

In either case, when the alerts come, generally it ends up being 33%-33%-33% if it's on Indar at least. VS has always been underpopulated but in PS1, they had ways around this... PS2? No luck for the outpopped faction.

I'm not quite sure how to deal with this aside from XP incentives, spawn time bonuses, and resource bonuses.

totalBimbo · 2013-05-16, 10:22 PM

we could all just join TR on waterson to address the issue by making the server come to complete stand still. or cry about it some more instead of actually working together on your factions.

Rivenshield · 2013-05-17, 02:01 AM

They need a cooldown period on empire-swapping. I never understood why they reneged on one empire per server, with all of its predictable side effects. I am more at a loss now to understand why they don't have yet one more simple, proven game mechanic in place that we had a decade ago.

Yeah, yeah; determined griefers and 4th Empire loyalists can run multiple clients and all that. It shouldn't be facilitated.

Ruffdog · 2013-05-17, 02:43 AM

If its really bad maybe:

Eliminate cooldown timers on maxes and vehicles?
Faster respawning? Or the ability to spawn ANYWHERE?
Lower recharge time on the personal shields?

ChipMHazard · 2013-05-17, 05:46 AM

One thing SOE might try is offering outfits server transfers, instead of just merging servers which some times just compound the pop issues already present. Obviously some sort of incentive would have to be given.

Other than that there's only really two other things they can do.
-Offer real bonuses for the underpopulated factions.
-Try to prevent/limit faction hopping to the degree that it might be happening atm.

Shogun · 2013-05-17, 06:03 AM

increase the xp boni and introduce additional bonus levels.
if your empire is underpopulated by a certain rate, you get an extreme xp bonus for a successful basedefend/attack.

maybe the more you are outnumbered, the more different boni you get. there are a few things that can be used as a bonus: resourcegain, cooldowntimers, xp bonus, respawndelays.

the problem is, that these may be helpful for the few underdogs who would fight there no matter what, but i don´t think it can lure in more players of that faction.

another thing that may help: make chars independent of the servers.
so you start the game, you chose your char and then you choose the server.

this way outfits could decide to go for an organised underdog-run.

Stanis · 2013-05-17, 06:19 AM

With home continents an empire has a very specific goal to defend.
They priorise them - they need them secure to be able to expand on to other continents.

With the way continents are linked via warpgates typically they are being contested by only two empires at a time.

The self-balancing in this is that when a dominant population threatens the other two empires they tend to stop fighting each.

This means the two weaker factions now start to focus on a single target. Who become outnumbered over two fronts.

This check and balance meant that the dominant population might hold more of the 11 continents but there were front lines being contested and a few solid battles underway.

My long term solution to PS2 balance requires a few more continents, well structured warpgate links. Which we aren't getting any time soon.

Otherwise population imbalance as a result of positive feedback loop to the most numerous empire means the constant meatgrinder 3 way has to stop.

MuNrOe · 2013-05-17, 06:44 AM

Copy Pasted from my posts.

Wow has the game really lost about 2000+ active players since the start of march.
http://sirisian.com/planetside2/popu...factions=false

There are some servers there that struggle to put up 600 players in prime time.

What would be great is if they merged every server into 1. Upped the player per map count to 2000 . Put in the empire swap time lock out, and added the 4th map and sanc. Then you would get some real planetside action. Where empires could focus the majority of their faction on one map and still put up a decent defense of the other.

Make warpgates what they should be "warpgates" and not spawn places. This game has at least a year untill it would even get close to anything that resembled it. Considering that it is losing 2000 players a month SOE really need to lift their game before it falls flat on its *** from people leaving. Weather that comes from lack of players on certain servers or lack of meaning full content. Either way things need to change.

Here you go dev's let me show you how thats done.

Local lattice is now done time to implement global lattice.

If only they would have listened to the PS1 vets in the first place instead of going around this roller coaster ride of stupidity to come back full circle and agree with us 6 months after tech testing. You guys want something to talk about at your friday night OP's shows or POD casts there you go. Bring this up and stop avoiding it.

Relative population is a symptom. If the Global lattice system was in and many servers merged then this would not even be.

The problem comes back to game design and lack of purpose to fight on different con tenants.

Go back to any time in PS1 say TR had A HUGE pop advantage. What would happen NC would hit a tr cont and Vanu would hit a tr cont. Splitting the empire in two. All of a sudden you have a 50% empire pop reduced to a 25%. Sure sometimes they would both stack and hit the NC or VANU at a point but the fact remained that at some point they had to fight each other. Some of the best fights I ever had were from breaking out of warpgate locks on NC with the Raid forming in the warpgate. Command chat keeping the target quite untill it was called and then hundreds of players all storming off to single cont to break into it.

SOE will look at locking people's empire population and some will log off in frustration if they keep on this same path. Its not the answer.

I mean FFS all these problems were addressed in the original. They did these things for a reason and it all made perfect sense. In short what your experiencing is the game in its current form missing something that was IN THE ORIGINAL!@@!!@ that served to fix this problem.

If there's a problem I guarantee if you look at the original game (PS1) the solution is already there.

Snipefrag · 2013-05-17, 06:59 AM

I dont buy into 'the sky is falling, so is the population' cries.. Those graphs don't look that alarming. A lot of people are waiting for lattice before running the game up again. With more sensible meta game a lot of the population issues will be fixed as long as the command tools are up to scratch.

In PS1 if one faction had a massive pop advantage and the other two factions were fighting each it was a TACTICAL DECISION to give up the fight and concentrate on the overpopped faction. Most the time it was done, or the overpopped faction would warpgate someone and then that faction would lose whatever cont they were stupidly fighting over and then come out of their warpgate like a swam of angry bees and take back most of the land.

Canaris · 2013-05-17, 07:07 AM

all this just stems from the fourth faction switching to suit the good warpgates positions, it's the TRs turn for that boost as last go round we were the bitches of the gate rotation, you did hear some crying and sniffles but most of us just sucked it up and continued the good fight. Even with the bad locations the core of the TR stayed put not our fault your factions don't inspire the same loyalty now is it, it's your turn now. So as many of the VS & NC said at the time to the TR "meh not our problem".

Oh and don't get me wrong, I agree whole heartily about same server faction swap times should be set for 12hr or 24hr cooldowns. You log in as your VS just to find your side is taking a beating and then WTJ, nope you made your choice so stick with it and I do hope as more continents are relased and a proper global lattice system is put in place we see less of this.

One more small point the Warpgates on Easamir & Indar need to be swapped around so when you have the North gate on Indar you don't also have the South gate on Easamir like we do now.

Assist · 2013-05-17, 07:47 AM

Originally Posted by Canaris

all this just stems from the fourth faction switching to suit the good warpgates positions, it's the TRs turn for that boost as last go round we were the bitches of the gate rotation, you did hear some crying and sniffles but most of us just sucked it up and continued the good fight. Even with the bad locations the core of the TR stayed put not our fault your factions don't inspire the same loyalty now is it, it's your turn now. So as many of the VS & NC said at the time to the TR "meh not our problem".

No, I really don't think you guys seem to understand. VS on Waterson has been outnumbered horribly no matter the warpgate. It's not "TR's turn". It's not "the "VS players were all 4th factioners". It's "There are no VS players.".

http://sirisian.com/planetside2/popu...factions=false

Take a look at that, then scroll back to see where the VS had the highest pop. Luckily the NC are now falling back to our levels, unfortunately that's only because the TR are gaining even more players.

You people are dead wrong when you think this is a warpgate issue, or some new recent issue. It has been like this on Waterson since release. TR has a dramatic advantage every single day because of their ridiculous population numbers. The only thing that is recently changing is the NC are falling back to their population numbers, while the VS are holding steady at 22% during primetime server hours.

You people that marginalize this anger me!

Canaris · 2013-05-17, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by Assist

No, I really don't think you guys seem to understand. VS on Waterson has been outnumbered horribly no matter the warpgate. It's not "TR's turn". It's not "the "VS players were all 4th factioners". It's "There are no VS players.".

http://sirisian.com/planetside2/popu...factions=false

Take a look at that, then scroll back to see where the VS had the highest pop. Luckily the NC are now falling back to our levels, unfortunately that's only because the TR are gaining even more players.

You people are dead wrong when you think this is a warpgate issue, or some new recent issue. It has been like this on Waterson since release. TR has a dramatic advantage every single day because of their ridiculous population numbers. The only thing that is recently changing is the NC are falling back to their population numbers, while the VS are holding steady at 22% during primetime server hours.

You people that marginalise this anger me!

I could be looking at the states from Gemini server of PS1 looking at that, VS were always the niche faction or least liked and over the development your factions rainbow fabulous approach to recruitment I'm sure turned away many players.
What you guys need to do is rebrand your image.

TR are the stern military red team that people will gravitate towards.

NC are the freedom loving rebels in blue who use everyday equipment turned into weapons and big guns while not usually as popular as the red team they will attract like minded folks in good numbers.

The VS well you're the tech savy but horrible fuchsia team with alien style equipment, now this will attract a niche player base but will put others off in droves. The Uncanny Valley as it's known

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

and if you don't think colour and style has something to do with it you don't know human psychology as well as me.
So what's left to do, well get yourselves a makeover and you might attract more players.
Instead of just bitching to me about marginalising you, use that anger and turn it into something productive get out there and do something about it.

Oh and it does have to do with warpgate position too, look at the stats from the different servers you linked, when the gates moved again you can clearly see players from VS & NC decline slightly and TR boost up. That's not an aberration.

ThatGoatGuy · 2013-05-17, 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by Canaris

NC are the freedom loving rebels in blue who use everyday equipment turned into weapons and big guns while not usually as popular as the red team they will attract like minded folks in good numbers.

So NS weapons with slugs in them and drum mags with the NC logo?