What determines who wins more often? Player skill, Population, or Faction imbalance?

Assist · 2013-02-25, 11:39 AM

So after spending my coffee time this morning reading through posts on Planetside2.com forums, I've come to realize that I disagree with a lot of what is posted.

It seems like people on the official forums blame a lot of the games issues on faction specific weapon imbalance, which blows my mind. The game is fairly well balanced for a three sided game, the few disparity's are obvious though. But reading on the forums about which factions weapons are stronger just drives me nuts. For the amount of guns in the game and the incredibly small differences in RoF, TTK, Reload, etc I find it amazing that people think FactionA wins more often because of their weapons. It really bothers me the most when I see people saying Vanu have it the best with the bullet drop, because 90% of fights happen in a range so small that bullet drop doesn't even have to be considered and when they're outside of that range the VS have damage drop off that everyone conveniently ignores when debating the minimal differences in weapons. Does anyone really feel that the weapons are that imbalanced? Do you guys get pushed out of defending a base and blame it on the faction balance/weapons? It feels like it's the most talked about subject on the forums and it blows my mind because it's one of the few things that are extremely well done compared to other tri-faction or even two faction games.

One of the least talked about subjects in PS2 seems to be player skill. Probably one of the more interesting subjects to me because this game wants to delve into the MLG market. I'd venture to guess that most of time someone pulls some amazing shot the first word that comes to mind is hacker. I personally don't do that much, I usually just take another drink, but I know from the /yells, the posts on forums, and the hilarious videos of legit players that people believe any sort of obscene player skill must be a hacker. If PlayerA from FactionA wipes out a room on his own someone yells bullshit as soon as they revive. Truth is it doesn't happen that often because usually someone reacts quick enough once something like that happens and with the short TTK that guy is taken care of by the pray and spray method. When is the last time you lost a base due to the skill of your opponent? Skill seems to be well balanced in this game IMO, for good or bad. The great players still can dominate in their own way but they don't make enough of a difference in a large fight that they really change the tide of the battle themselves. This type of game play is great for the lifetime of the game but the attraction of the game should be based on something like meta-game/strategy which is really lacking right now. I think one of the few places where player skill shines is in the aircraft, I have no chance against some of the good pilots on Waterson, where as I can still get a lucky shot or two in against the great infantry players. While I don't think player skill has an immense impact, I prefer it how it is because it means that teamwork and/or strategy is still required to dominate.

Which brings me to the third deciding factor in the game, population. I think population plays far too big of a part in the game right now. Population overwhelms any potential weapon imbalance as well as any potential player skill difference. Zergs destroy any tactics involved in defense. Doesn't matter if you have the best strategy and the best players, you're going to get overrun by the zombie horde if you attempt to fight it. Unless of course you have a zerg to counter it. While I'm fine with this style of game play, the problem is that there's not always a zerg to counter the opposing zerg. The zerg vs zerg mentality works until one zerg disappears. Then you have a handful of people getting crushed attempting to defend and a zerg of bored people taking empty territory. You can almost always login and find a zerg vs zerg fight, but lately it seems that one side has multiple zergs while another faction only has one. Eventually the side with one zerg gets flanked by two zergs and people just split and head to another continent. The problem is there's no good reason to fight outnumbered. There's nothing that gives you a chance to fight outnumbered. I enjoy being on the underdog side in most games because you always have something to work towards, but in Planetside 2 it feels like you're just being punished for being on the underdog faction. How they can fix/change this, I have no idea. It may be perception that has lead to one side being underpopulated, maybe it's this fourth faction so many talk about, or maybe it's just that there's no appeal to being on a certain faction. Either way, the fact is it's not fun to get run over day after day because you simply don't stand a chance against the overwhelming number of players running at you. I think one thing that could really help the issue is giving more incentives to defend territory you control, as well as make it easier to defend that territory. I think the closer a base is to your warpgate the more value it should have. Small changes can go a long way in this game, as some recent balance adjustments have shown, I wish they'd do some small tweaks to try and even out the populations on servers. Worst that happens is the faction imbalance shifts to the underdog and then they can tweak from there.

Time for more coffee.

tl;dr - Weapon balance is as good as it gets, get over the minuscule differences; Player Skill vs. Player Teamwork is really well balanced; Population needs to be close to even across factions for this game to work.

psijaka · 2013-02-25, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Assist

-snip-
tl;dr - Weapon balance is as good as it gets, get over the minuscule differences; Player Skill vs. Player Teamwork is really well balanced; Population needs to be close to even across factions for this game to work.

Agree wholeheartedly.

Faction imbalance issues are minor. Skill is important, but if 30 tanks turn up outside Broken arch, then you've lost anyway.

CraazyCanuck · 2013-02-25, 11:51 AM

Add in a more lucrative reason for defense other then a small bonus on killing a guy while defending and keep improving base defensibility. I'm a defense whore and love making a capture as much of a pain in the ass as I can manage, but even wih my sick appetite for abuse I'm getting tired of the futility of it. The warp tunnels were a nice touch but we need more. Put all vital areas of a base underground.

Assist · 2013-02-25, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by psijaka

Agree wholeheartedly.

Faction imbalance issues are minor. Skill is important, but if 30 tanks turn up outside Broken arch, then you've lost anyway.

And I'm ok with getting zerged down at a base, that's part of the game. As long as there's a friendly zerg somewhere that can counter it. When there's not a friendly zerg that can counter, then there's a problem.

Kerrec · 2013-02-25, 11:55 AM

I agree with you.

However, I do firmly believe in the 4th faction. And it's obvious they believe in weapons being imbalanced since they switched teams in the first place.

After GU2, most of my deaths were to NC BR10's or below using 1000 Cert weapons. To me, it's obvious. And I'm sure the NC and VS were seeing TR BR10's or below kill screens too.

The 4th faction is a serious issue. Being able to switch factions while staying on the same server wasn't a good idea.

EVILPIG · 2013-02-25, 11:57 AM

Current balance:

Best infantry weapons - TR,VS,NC
Best MAX - NC,VS,TR
Best ESF - VS,TR,NC
Best Tank - TR,VS,NC

CraazyCanuck · 2013-02-25, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by Kerrec

The 4th faction is a serious issue. Being able to switch factions while staying on the same server wasn't a good idea.

Bingo! Agreed Kerrec. Bonehead idea that was.

ringring · 2013-02-25, 12:04 PM

I'm sure you're right.

Imbalances will always exist and in PS2 they're minor. Skill is not particularly important. Who brings most is the winner.

What could be done?

Well, the devs could make the base benefits stronger, strong enough to influence strategy anyway.

CraazyCanuck · 2013-02-25, 12:09 PM

Defense has to become just as vital as offense with the rewards to match or atleast be comparable. Other then a direct xp reward what if they implemented a hold bonus. The longer you fight in and hold an area from attack, the greater the rewards improve up to a maximum that makes sense? Or you receive a morale bonus in HP or some other buff that makes it worthwhile to stick to defense.

Graywolves · 2013-02-25, 12:11 PM

The massive amount of people who can't properly test or analyze anything in the game has lead me to simply not bother saying anything half the time. People generally just want to lobby for their team or play style.

While there is a lot of factors in gun play to be competitive it is undermined by the surrounding environment and balancing. Overall the minor errors in gun play balancing don't effect much other than subjective game play.

It is possible to get a small group of coordinated players and be a pest to larger forces, sometimes even defeating certain forces. But the game's flow is definitely governed by momentum.

So if I had to choose one of the three I would say population, as much as I don't want that to be it's just one of those basic fundamentals of war. Not much can be done against a 3:1 ratio or higher unless certain factors are met or the forces are funneled/manipulated in a way to make them work in 1:1 encounters.

But if you break a Zerg's momentum then you get more of your own forces show up and an actual battle occurs. Then whoever wins gains momentum and pushes while the loser disperses.

Gimpylung · 2013-02-25, 12:28 PM

Faction switching must have some kind of meaningful penalty, you should not be able to do it on a whim.

This issue need to be resolved before account wide unlocks are made available or chaos will ensue and empire balance will go to hell.

Base defences and attacks need to operate based on the same scoring as PS1... based on your contribution to the fight. You killed a load of people, rep'd gens, supported in general during a successful defence you get a huge proportional reward. Keep the existing 15% bonus for defenders too.

You were part of a big zerg that captured a base that had a squad defending it and you barely fired a shot, you get virtually no reward.

2 zergs meet in a base, big fight ensues, whoever wins the fight gets a big def/cap reward but everybody is happy because there was a big fight and people were earning regular XP anyways.

There are flaws with this idea but its better than only 15% defence bonus and no ultimate 'Defended' reward in conjunction with a 1000xp base cap bonus for just showing up at a ghosted zerg capture.

In the existing reward structure, your average casual player is just gonna join the zerg and get the free capture XP.

MrBloodworth · 2013-02-25, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Assist

It seems like people on the official forums blame a lot of the games issues on faction specific weapon imbalance, which blows my mind.

10 years of this in the original game. Asymmetrical balance causes this. Games where each faction are just copies with different paint jobs do not.

This surprises no one.

As for who brings the most. Its a player problem, this isn't a session based shooter where a match starts and ends with a set number of users.

This is one of the features of the game, not a flaw. You could argue though that organizational tools are lacking. Its a war game, logistics matter, its not a "battle" game. There are many battles in a war.

Then you have the design point of :"Everyone should be able to pull anything at any time" , with the created caveat of map design and access ( Something not part of PS1 ). Witch leads to the DESIGNERS being the arbiters of whose going to win what by fact of access to equipment to assault the wholly open bases with, and not the players.

Lastly, my personal surprise is most issues with PS2 can be attributed to one thing that no one seems to be willing to attribute it to. The base designs. They are Death match mentality school of design. Not warfare, or siege type.

Every base needs to have an underground area inaccessible to Vehicles and it must contain sub-objectives for the base. Hallways do not cut it. We need areas of contention and multiple paths more akin tot he original. The key sub-objective should be the spawn room. Every single base needs the siege mechanics back. Outside, courtyard, interior, phases.

This is missing in this version, and was the core of the design of the original game. In PS2, its like they intentionally thought that everyone should be vulnerable to vehicles at all points in time.

They took what was possibly the worst aspects of base design of PS1, the towers, and amplified it. Forgetting that all towers were attached to a base. However you can see some of this in the "forward" spawns of major bases... but its wrong. Just wrong.

4th empire means fuck all just like it did in the original, its a perceived boogeyman that barely exists, the issues are the map design and the designer arbitration of whose going to win, ETC..

Assist · 2013-02-25, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

Current balance:

Best infantry weapons - TR,VS,NC
Best MAX - NC,VS,TR
Best ESF - VS,TR,NC
Best Tank - TR,VS,NC

You're speaking about weapon imbalance, and I disagree with all your opinions on the ranking of 'best'. As I said, weapon imbalance is hardly there at all, to the point that it's one of the last things that should be debated because of the amount the imbalance effects game play.

Originally Posted by Graywolves

The massive amount of people who can't properly test or analyze anything in the game has lead me to simply not bother saying anything half the time. People generally just want to lobby for their team or play style.

While there is a lot of factors in gun play to be competitive it is undermined by the surrounding environment and balancing. Overall the minor errors in gun play balancing don't effect much other than subjective game play.

Completely agree. Some of the whining about faction imbalance is hysterical. I personally love the ones who always come out in droves against the VS for having no recoil.

MrBloodworth · 2013-02-25, 01:08 PM

No one has the best tank.

We all have the worst bases.

Dkamanus · 2013-02-25, 01:18 PM

I really can't say. I'm usually with a decent KDR and 2 days from now it seems MUCH harder to kill people. They only seem to die fast enough with 3~4 headshots. I've unloaded a LOT of bullets into someones chest (11 hits in some cases) and the dude doesn't seem to drop dead.

Hit registrations seem to be messed up. My latency lately has been 210~230 ms (was 160 ms before). People are hitting me with bullets sprays so often it's not even funny and when I do the same (NC weapons are capable of that, depending on the weapon), more then not I've seemed to fail lately at killing consistently.

It's a whole gamma of problems that are turning me off this game, and I'd hate to see it die out, but it will, most likely to some problems that we'd hope weren't in it, but are now.

And yes, even with slightly differences, those can make or break a game balance.