Risk of Unbalanced Servers?

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Mirror

I would actually like to see incentives return (I think I saw a SS that contained them a few days ago) but instead of giving the under popped empire benefits like HP, acquisition timers etc I would like to see them given to the empire with the larger pop.
-Increase vehicle and max timers
-Increase respawn times
-Increase spawn on squad timers
-Increase the timer of resources
-Increase base node times

And so on.

Not a bad idea, but people generally like buffs more than nerfs. So given the choice, it is probably better to buff the underpopulated empire.

[ArmedZealot]

What is wrong with the current XP bonus and penalties based on server pops?

[Deadeye]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

This may or may not be a problem. I think outfits stacking whatever the new 'Gemini' will be will be a worse problem.

Yeah. That, at least, is going to happen. It happened in SWTOR where the "server to be on" was/is Fatman thus what you get is one very populated server at the cost of all the other servers being boring and/or empty because everyone wants to be on the one server.

[The Loverator]

Originally Posted by HeatLegend

Risk of Unbalanced Servers?

Sorry for being so honest, but:

1.) Suck it up. There is no real Balance all the Time. : 3


2.) Imagine the heroic Noble-Six Feeling! Fighting against a hopeless Number of Villain's. (*ggg*)


3.) Even on "balanced" Servers, it is simply impossible for every Player to be online at the same Time as "every other Player" of the same Faction,

s~oo, that leads you back to Point 1. Please suck it up, again! : 3 xPPP
It's not meant to offend you. It's just only a Fact.




greetings, LV.

[Hmr85]

Some of the best fights I have had has been when we where outnumbered 3 to 1. There is nothing wrong with this. It just means more targets of in the field to shoot at.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by The Degenatron

Exactly! And that's a GOOD thing. It means they push their territory out, taking land away from the other two empires, and moving the fighting to different zones, giving all of the players present the chance to play in places they might not often see.

And that's fine, because population imbalances with flow back and forth between empires.

Don't assume that one empire will alway have a monopoly on man-power, because that doesn't even bear out in Planetside 1 today, where the Vanu obviously have a larger standing population but still get out numbered on the server on a regular basis.

Right, but there's no need to have empires be able to have much more than 45% of a continents maximum population cap to achieve that.

Remember that if a continent has nobody else on it, a single VS will bring the total current population up to 100% VS. So percentage of current population is irrelevant.

The reason to have a percentage cap on the total population limit of a continent is so that one empire can't rush in and fill up every slot on a continent, leaving the other empires fucked if they want to try to go in and defend.

At a minimum, empires shouldn't be able to have more than 50% of the population. If TR has all of the territory on x continent with nobody fighting there (uncertain how often this extreme scenario would ever actually happen in PS2), and then NC rushes in and fills up every spot that they can, the TR should at least be given the hypothetical option to evenly match their numbers.

Of course, with 3 factions, a few VS may decide to crash the party and fill a few of those slots, leaving the TR at a population disadvantage, but at least the NC wouldn't have more players than the TR and VS combined. They will still have a population advantage in the sense that the TR and VS may fight each other as well.

This is where something like a cap of 40% - 45% of the population makes sense. The TR and NC could both field their maximum populations on a continent, while still leaving enough room for 200 - 400 VS to come in and alter the dynamic of the battle. While 666 vs 666 vs 666 would definitely become very stale, 900 vs 900 vs 200 would be very dynamic and interesting.

The point being that there has to be a balance. An even split of the populations is boring and rigid, while allowing one side to have half or more of the maximum population is too open to abuse.

I'm pretty sure that the developers are already on top of it though.

[The Degenatron]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

This is where something like a cap of 40% - 45% of the population makes sense. The TR and NC could both field their maximum populations on a continent, while still leaving enough room for 200 - 400 VS to come in and alter the dynamic of the battle. While 666 vs 666 vs 666 would definitely become very stale, 900 vs 900 vs 200 would be very dynamic and interesting.

I see where you are going with that. I was not understanding the concern.

I think that a firm 33% cap for each empire is the best. Just because the populations are limited to exactly 1/3 for each empire doesn't mean you're going to have those player slots filled out.

I certainly don't like the idea of two empires being able to monopolize the majority of player slots. Every empire should always have a chance to field an equal fighting force - whether they actually do or not.

[Xyntech]

That may be necessary if they go with permanent footholds on every continent at the start. I'm still hoping for something a little more dynamic at launch.

What I think would be fine is an even global population cap. So if 3 continents can support 6000 players, than there can only ever be 2000 VS spread across the 3 continents, but that there can be 33% on one continent, 30% on another, and 37% on the third.

I like the devs idea about everyone always having the option to fight on all of the continents, but I don't think it necessarily needs to be even population caps or have permanent footholds to do it. 400 vs 800 vs 800, the 400 can still take a lot of territory and do a lot of damage. But if there are permanent footholds for every empire on all three continents, it would seem kind of lame to get locked out, unable to defend the area around your foothold with less players than the other empire(s) had.

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by The Degenatron

I think that a firm 33% cap for each empire is the best. Just because the populations are limited to exactly 1/3 for each empire doesn't mean you're going to have those player slots filled out.

Bear in mind that even when and if two or three empires have the same continent poplocked, they're going to be sloshing around this giant-ass map. Every single fight you get in is going to be unequal, unless two empires sort of consensually square off at a single location and start whaling the shit out of each other. And that will be rare, because the name of the game here is resource control.

In PS1 we know that even a 10%-20% pop advantage is irresistible.... UNLESS you're in a tower, gen room, etc. I strongly suspect we're going to see more chokepoints, walls, shields, doors, and other defensive features installed by the time beta ends. Because nine times in ten, the (much) smaller force is going to need them so they can defend what they just grabbed. Nobody will consent to hang around and get steamrollered from four different directions. That's not fun.

The old move-the-zerg-around-the-lattice strategy is going the way of the dodo bird. So is the last-stand-in-the-gen-room tactic. I'm not worried about unbalanced *servers.* I'm a bit concerned about every single *fight* you get in being unbalanced. Badly.

[Klockan]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

The point being that there has to be a balance. An even split of the populations is boring and rigid, while allowing one side to have half or more of the maximum population is too open to abuse.

Why is an even split boring and rigid? Isn't the point with this game that due to the size of the continents any position you are in will have imbalanced odds, either the enemies outnumbers you or you outnumber the enemy. Then most of the time the server wont even be full so your scenarios could exist anyway.

Also it would feel very bad for a vanu soldier if you can't log in since the vile TR and the greedy NC just took up basically the whole server. Maxing out at 35% is way better than maxing out at 40%.