Why 3 Factions?

[GuyFawkes]

Its a magic number that promotes pvp ,and only 2 games designers actually 'got' it. PS and DAoC . Anyone who played them remember the great times they has and wish for a remake.

The same ethos is used when it comes to Tupping time with sheep . You always but an odd number of Rams in with a group of sheep. That way, if 2 are fighting, the other one is free to shag as many sheep as possible .

[LillRutger]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

I think the question is not why 3 and not 2, but why 3 and not 5? That would allow for stopping stalemates and also reduce the possibility of 2 on 1 gangups.

5 factions would imo increase the possibility/risk of 2man gangups. also it would turn into a huge clusterf*k if they all fought at once.

I seem to have amemory of a good explanation to having three faction in 1984. And in any case it's a good book, read it

[Memeotis]

Yeah, like the others said. If there were only two factions, anf one turned out to be really powerful, there would be no stopping them. If there are three factions however, and one factions becomes too powerful, the other two can combine forces to drive the stronger faction back.

Why not 4? Well that would of course mean that there would be less players per faction, but if would also mean that (imagine a square map with each empire in each corner) that one faction would always fight the two adjacent factions, and hardly ever the faction diagonal from it.

Three seems to be the perfect number for this.

[xnorb]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

I think the question is not why 3 and not 2, but why 3 and not 5?

This - oh so much this !

Although the whole system behind Planetside is different than BF/CoD/literally
every other FPS out there, 2 factions is quite limiting and i'd rather have
too many factions than only 2.

[FastAndFree]

This very well might just be an urban legend, but there was some talk on this forum that there were originally supposed to be 4 teams in Planetside, but concerns were raised that it would turn into a permanent unofficial 2v2 so the 4th faction was removed

[RageMasterUK]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this...

DOUBLE THE TARGETS BABY!!!! HELLZ YEAH!!!


Every empire's soldiers are outnumbered by targets in a ratio of 2-1, so 3 teams creates a more target-rich environment. That really helps add to the epic scale. It helps build the impression that the odds are against you, and that impression makes base-captures feel much more satisfying IMHO.

I work for a well known laser combat franchise and the 3 team battles are way way WAY more exiting.

-RageMasterUK

[IHateMMOs]

The question is, why not?

[Obiyer]

I read Malorn's article on Planetside and he made a good case for 4 factions. Frankly, I don't like 3 ways, I want an even fight between two factions. Fighting a 3 way for hours and hours doesn't get you anywhere fast, you may get to farm kills though. But as for accomplishing the objective of the game, I don't know.

Franky, that's what's bugged me about Planetside, like there is absolutely no point to the fighting. You can cap, base after base and sanc lock, but so what, then what? There really is no benefit to doing it, other than to say you did wherein other games there's an absolute win condition.

I had an outfit mate once who played WW2 Online and he said the reason he left was because the Germans always won, and it was boring. So there is a case for having a third force.

[Vreki]

Originally Posted by Obiyer

I read Malorn's article on Planetside and he made a good case for 4 factions. Frankly, I don't like 3 ways, I want an even fight between two factions. .

Well, you cant have it.
With two sides, one side always end up being perceived as having better weapons or whatever. It doesn't matter if it is based in facts, the perception alone is enough to attract more players
Then that side will start winning more due to numerical superiority, causing even more to join that side and so on until the game dies due to severe player imbalance.
As far as I recall, that is what happened to Warhammer Online. Two factions, didn't work out.

3 sides are optimal because even though it often becomes a 2vs1, the alliances will shift as soon as one of the previous weak sides starts to dominate.

But add too many sides and we just end up with squad deathmatch instead of a war.

[Nemeses]

With 3 factions its near impossible for one faction to become the dominating force, where in almost any proper world PvP MMO out there with 2 factions one has always become the stronger, and needed extra game mechanics to stop them totally dominating the game, this way the players themselves will BE the extra 'game mechanic'!

[Boof]

Hell, the scale of Planetside 2 can hardly contain three factions. There should be four! Just kidding, four would be too many. Too confusing and too much mayhem/things blowing up haha.

[Malorn]

I'm actually more of a 3 faction fan now. Double teams can be discouraged other ways.

2 factions doesn't work out well as WAR and SWTOR and just about every other game. As basti and others have pointed out it helps balance populations and keep one side from dominating. DAOC showed how well it works. Mythic later regretted not making WAR a three faction game as they had with DAOC. In PS it mostly worked out well, and with some design you can make attacking a dominant empire more lucrative than kicking one that's down.

[LordReaver]

Everybody saying the third balances things, is wrong. Look no further than PS1, where we regularly have one team with more than 50% population. Contrary to popular belief, two works just fine.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by LordReaver

Everybody saying the third balances things, is wrong. Look no further than PS1, where we regularly have one team with more than 50% population. Contrary to popular belief, two works just fine.

You didn't actually refute anything there. Three empires doesn't prevent a dominant empire. It discourages it and provides a natural counter. With two there is no counter, you're just screwed.

[JesNC]

Originally Posted by LordReaver

Everybody saying the third balances things, is wrong. Look no further than PS1, where we regularly have one team with more than 50% population. Contrary to popular belief, two works just fine.

That's not just popular belief, at least not for me. I can't remember a MMO PvP environment with 2 factions that was balanced number-wise in any way. I do remember WAR and WoW though, where the bigger faction just steamrolled the other one on regular basis.