Why PlanetSide is whacked

[BadAsh]

Ok, well the game is not really completely whacked, but it does have a few critical problems that should never have been... I know I'm going to be flamed for this opinion, but so be it.

The 2 problems I'll address here are:

1. Population Problems... meaning the teams are never even.

2. Game Balance problems... meaning one team is always more powerful for one reason or another (besides the above mentioned population issue) and therefor has an unfair advantage.

These two problems feed off of each other to the point of being silly. With each empire being "unique" and having different equipment with different capabilities there will always be game balance problems. This simply will NEVER go away as long as the above �flavor� is maintained.

When the NC had the best equipment in the game they had the largest population and NC hordes when unchecked for months.

Now the VS have the most powerful equipment and so they now have the largest active population and are running unchecked.

Solution you ask?

Make everything common pool. The empire "flavor" thing is folly. This is a fast action competitive sport like video game. Teams need the same capabilities and equipment to remain even.

What serious sport has such uneven teams? In American Football or Baseball what league allows one team to have more players? What if one team was allowed an unfair advantage like say to be able to run out of bounds and still have the play count while the other team would draw a penalty? The advantaged team would always win and it would quickly become boring.

I've brought this up before and have been flamed because everyone having access to the same equipment would "ruin empire uniqueness" and "make the game too vanilla" or my favorite �It will make my hacking/jacking useless�� HUH?

A good art team, like what SOE has, could make very unique but statistically equivalent equipment for each empire with no trouble. Just look at body armor for an example of what I mean... a TR Rexo = a NC Rexo = a VS Rexo but each has a completely different look and style while remaining identical in game play and functionality.

Now imagine all "empire specific" weapons getting an artistic makeover for each empire so their appearance and sound were as distinctive and unique as the body armors but statistically identical.

Now a minor adjustment to a single weapon, say the Lasher for example, would not fuck the whole game up by making a weapon advantageous to have and causing a mass migration from one team to another.

The community would be less divided because 1/3rd won't be attacked at the "bad guy" for having the "overpowered n00b weapon" and the other 2/3rds won't feel cheated or feel the need to switch teams until the balance is restored.

Thus making everything common pool and making everything FAIR and EVEN would restore team numbers and balance the game in one simple fix.

Now victory can be determined by things such as player skill, tactics, and planned strategy rather than overpowered equipment and vast disparity in populations. Novel idea huh?

Besides how damn cool would it be to make decisions like: Hmmm, should I go with the sniper style AV weapon, the lock-on self-guided AV weapon, or the manual camera guided AV weapon? Hmmm, am I in a shotgun, machine gun, or lashy kind of mood today? Hmmm, for our mission would a lock down MAX, a flying MAX, or a shielded MAX best suit our needs? Hmmm, so we need light vehicles that can cross water or do we need heavy vehicles to try and stave off this Zerg attack? Choices are a good thing� think of the dynamics this would add to the game�

*Bad Ash suits up in an itchy asbestos suit and perches an albatross on his shoulder while bracing for the napalm... �You would not flame a guy with an albatross on his shoulder now would ya? It�s bad luck!*