Population Inbalance - Page 2

Ait'al · 2013-05-17, 08:15 AM

The answer to populations problems is too shoot them and kill them!

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, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by capiqu

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.

Oh you make me laugh. I was playing all day yesterday, when were you on when you were 20% pop? I was on 3-10 CST which is basically the majority of primetime, and there was NO point in which we were below 30% population. Were you on something like Esamir? Yeah we had lower pop because we were dunking shit on Indar during that alert.

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?

Assist · 2013-05-17, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by Canaris

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.

And look at the stats on Waterson, or on Mattherson. They've both proven that warpgate rotation means nothing. Just because it effects one server doesn't mean it's a general blanket statement for the game. The VS on Waterson gained the north Warpgate on Indar and lost 3% population on average until the next warpgate rotation.

What exactly do you think the VS on Waterson should do to get more people? What is some magic cure that you think is going to gain us these players? Stop trying to play this off as if it's a problem with the players. It's not, it's a problem with the game and the lack of development on population balance since the release of the game. Blaming it on image of a faction is ridiculous, if that were true then why are there servers where VS has higher population? Do you think so many euro's play on Waterson because it's a better name than Miller? Sorry but the branding of your faction image doesn't change balance. It's just like the gun sounds, that's not going to fix population balance. Sure it may change the appeal of a faction but it's not going to magically fix months of unbalanced population.

The problem is they refuse to do what is necessary to make the populations balanced. Enforce legitimate buffs / nerfs based on extreme population differences. It's not a problem of weapon balance, vehicle balance, or color appeal. It's a problem of more people choosing one server rather than another. Why should they choose to go join an underpopulated faction? Moral reasons? Lol, it's a video game, they want to win, no reason to put themselves at a disadvantage from the start. That's the problem that the developers need to address. Increasing XP gain doesn't matter to a new player if he's facing twice as many bullets flying at him. A noob would much rather be on the side shooting twice as many bullets.

So, color? Faction appeal? gunplay Balance? Warpgate? All this has been disproved through the statistics on PS2. It's really as simple as people choose to play on the more populated faction, because there's no reason to help the good fight and join the challenging side. I hope people realize one day that every server has different population issues and the fix that SoE needs to implement to solve that problem should not be a faction specific change.

Roderick · 2013-05-17, 09:52 AM

I think the only fix for this problem would be to allow your character to log onto all servers.This way if a player or an outfit wants to challenge themselves, they can log onto the server with low population for this empire and maybe the game should offer a better experience bonus incentive to those player for taking on the task to help balance the numbers.

Unless SOE comes out with some form of open server select system to allow players to freely go where they choose, you will continue to see imbalance results and disgruntled players.

ChipMHazard · 2013-05-17, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Assist

The problem is they refuse to do what is necessary to make the populations balanced. Enforce legitimate buffs / nerfs based on extreme population differences. It's not a problem of weapon balance, vehicle balance, or color appeal. It's a problem of more people choosing one server rather than another. Why should they choose to go join an underpopulated faction? Moral reasons? Lol, it's a video game, they want to win, no reason to put themselves at a disadvantage from the start. That's the problem that the developers need to address. Increasing XP gain doesn't matter to a new player if he's facing twice as many bullets flying at him. A noob would much rather be on the side shooting twice as many bullets.

So, color? Faction appeal? gunplay Balance? Warpgate? All this has been disproved through the statistics on PS2. It's really as simple as people choose to play on the more populated faction, because there's no reason to help the good fight and join the challenging side. I hope people realize one day that every server has different population issues and the fix that SoE needs to implement to solve that problem should not be a faction specific change.

Agreed. There needs to be a reason to fight for the lower populated side and less of a reason to fight for the side with the most players. Whatever the initial reasoning behind players choosing one side over another was, it probably doesn't matter now. It's quite possible that players are simply joining the winning team.

On some servers it might still be a simple question of some factions having many players that aren't able/willing to play as much at this point in time (exam peroid and all that).

capiqu · 2013-05-17, 10:54 AM

I'm not talking about server mergers or server transfers. I rather stay put where I'm at on Mattherson. But populations are shifting all day long. Now I'm using server names as examples but I'll switch to server A and Server B.
So server A may at one point during the day have a 45% TR population while server B is really in need of TR at that same time only with 22% TR. As I log in, the log in screen could indicate that sever B is open to TR.
Well server A, my server with 45% TR will be boring as hell since most likely 80% of the Tr will be pushing on one direction with overwhelming force and easy wins. Seeing this I can then decide to log into server B.

Canaris · 2013-05-17, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by Assist

And look at the stats on Waterson, or on Mattherson. They've both proven that warpgate rotation means nothing. Just because it effects one server doesn't mean it's a general blanket statement for the game. The VS on Waterson gained the north Warpgate on Indar and lost 3% population on average until the next warpgate rotation.

What exactly do you think the VS on Waterson should do to get more people? What is some magic cure that you think is going to gain us these players? Stop trying to play this off as if it's a problem with the players. It's not, it's a problem with the game and the lack of development on population balance since the release of the game. Blaming it on image of a faction is ridiculous, if that were true then why are there servers where VS has higher population? Do you think so many euro's play on Waterson because it's a better name than Miller? Sorry but the branding of your faction image doesn't change balance. It's just like the gun sounds, that's not going to fix population balance. Sure it may change the appeal of a faction but it's not going to magically fix months of unbalanced population.

The problem is they refuse to do what is necessary to make the populations balanced. Enforce legitimate buffs / nerfs based on extreme population differences. It's not a problem of weapon balance, vehicle balance, or color appeal. It's a problem of more people choosing one server rather than another. Why should they choose to go join an underpopulated faction? Moral reasons? Lol, it's a video game, they want to win, no reason to put themselves at a disadvantage from the start. That's the problem that the developers need to address. Increasing XP gain doesn't matter to a new player if he's facing twice as many bullets flying at him. A noob would much rather be on the side shooting twice as many bullets.

So, color? Faction appeal? gunplay Balance? Warpgate? All this has been disproved through the statistics on PS2. It's really as simple as people choose to play on the more populated faction, because there's no reason to help the good fight and join the challenging side. I hope people realize one day that every server has different population issues and the fix that SoE needs to implement to solve that problem should not be a faction specific change.

Planetside 1 had a very nice system of boosting HP to factions with low pops, maybe that might be better system than nerfing weapons as a whole on one side that's just more populated.

Snydenthur · 2013-05-17, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by capiqu

I'm not talking about server mergers or server transfers. I rather stay put where I'm at on Mattherson. But populations are shifting all day long. Now I'm using server names as examples but I'll switch to server A and Server B.
So server A may at one point during the day have a 45% TR population while server B is really in need of TR at that same time only with 22% TR. As I log in, the log in screen could indicate that sever B is open to TR.
Well server A, my server with 45% TR will be boring as hell since most likely 80% of the Tr will be pushing on one direction with overwhelming force and easy wins. Seeing this I can then decide to log into server B.

And after 30mins you'd be logging off and changing to the server that has more players on your faction, since nobody likes to be on the losing side. Trusting players, without any benefit for them, to balance is the most stupid idea ever. It doesn't work in any game, that's why normal shooters usually have automatic team balancing.

Yes, there are some players (like you might be), that enjoy the "challenge", but most of the players wouldn't balance. Underpopulated faction has no chance. They might have the best players in the world, but the truth is, numbers matter a lot more than skill in this game. Especially after the lattice is introduced to the game.

Ruffdog · 2013-05-17, 11:40 AM

Will people with deeply invested toons be tempted by server transfer tokens? I think they are an inevitable cash grab down the line

DeltaGun · 2013-05-17, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Canaris

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.

Yeah Assist, stop bitching and go change the faction colors already. Canaris is a psychologist.

ChipMHazard · 2013-05-17, 04:23 PM

Right now it seems like some of the low pop issues can be attributed to people not wanting to fight a losing battle. During this alert on Miller the TR pop on Esamir dropped by about 10% when the TR almost got pushed back to the WG.
This of course could also be attributed to there being no real reason to try and fight in an alert that can't be won.

VGCS · 2013-05-17, 04:30 PM

The biggest limiting factor here is Hit-Registry.

Most of the imbalance seems to be Coast-based a lot of times and "solving it" would require for some East coasters to play on West coast servers and Visa Versa. And that's just not possible in most FPS, and especially not in this one where there's no real scaling Lag-compensation on the "simulated projectile" physics of this game... Tribes has the same issue which makes Automatics instant-win weapons for some people, and instant loss for others depending on Routing & Latency

maradine · 2013-05-17, 04:44 PM

Increase low pop XP bonuses by a literal factor of ten. Make playing on the bitch faction of your server have the rough effect of a double XP weekend. The problem will solve itself in one weekend.