How will the teams stay even??

AeoNELiTe · 2003-02-25, 02:52 PM

I'm just wondering how it is going to wind up fair in terms of teams, from the forums at least it looks like most of the beta/elite players are going to NC, I'll be Vanu but I don't know anyone else who will... and obviously I can't take on an entire army of skilled players by myself. Isn't it just going to be NC dominating all the other empires?... sigh... hope not.

Deadlock · 2003-02-25, 02:58 PM

remember, the players arent limited to this forum. And everyone in the forum doesnt post. Alot just read. The last time i checked the official ps web poll, tr had the most, then a close second by nc, and then vanu not too far behind. That could have well changed by now but its safe to say they'll stay pretty close. Plus, if ur on the less numbered side u get beps faster as a handicap. Dont think u have to worry about it being like 16000 to 24 or anything like that.

BLuE_ZeRO · 2003-02-25, 02:58 PM

Don't let the forums fool you. There are going to be alot more people playing the game that don't post on the forums. For some reason PSU seems to have a big NC gathering. Poor misguided people

LesserShade · 2003-02-25, 03:00 PM

from the poll that had been running on the official sony forum, after 24,000 people voted, it looked VERY close to an even split between the three empires.

With that many people playing, I have a fealing that the game will balance itself quit nicely, but it sounds like sony will make very subtle alterations to even out teams if one team starts to dominate too much.

Zatrais · 2003-02-25, 03:17 PM

Yeah, lodsa NC here... damn traitors of the republic!

but annyways, the server population will be pretty balanced i guess and if 1 server gets out of hand the devs can tune that server individually to rebalance it.. i.e letting the side thats undermanned get BEPs faster.. can also boost their HP and damage but thats a last resort.

sterben · 2003-02-25, 03:25 PM

From the DevChat posted on PSU here:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/a...leId=33&page=2

How will you keep one faction from totally dominating the game?

Well that�s a pretty open question, isn�t it? {laughs}

Well some of that is going to depend on the players themselves. But if what you�re talking about is world balance? Is that what you mean, by like how many people are in each empire?

Yeah, I believe that is the just behind this question.

Well basically we have an empires incentives program, and it may be a little bit mislabeled, because it can also be a little bit of a disincentive. The idea is that when the teams get really outbalanced, we start doing things like penalizing the XP for the people that grossly outnumber the other enemies, and increasing the XP for people that are outnumbered. Because quite honestly they are facing a greater challenge, so they get more experience. It also gets into the point where you have some ranks, and they can compete a little bit better. But even that isn�t really a long-term solution. That�s just a gentle nudge so that when new players, or old players are creating new characters in an existing empire, or they decided to go to a different empire to be able to get the different challenge and be able to get a little bit more experience.

Now on the other hand, experience curves flatten out eventually. You get to battle-rank 20 and that sort of thing isn�t much of an incentive. If the empires get seriously out of whack, to the point where it is on a 2-to-1 ratio, then we�ll actually start to monkey around with maximums on health, and there are some other penalties or incentives that we�re thinking about doing. So like if you�re grossly outnumbered then we�ll start doing things like just reducing the maximum amount of health you can have as a character, or on the other hand we�ll award you with more health if you�re willing to play on the underdogs side.

Now that might sound bad at first, but these things are fairly self-balancing. Once people shift to the other empire, or when more characters have come into that empire � and by the way we advertise the fact that your world needs more people in a certain empire, so that when people are looking at it they can decide what empire they want based on what�s good balance. We spent a lot of time just setting things up so that defections can occur, but they don�t happen a lot. We also make sure that the incentives/disincentives happen on a fairly fluid basis; they�re not like you�re going to end up getting this penalty or that bonus and it�s therefor a week or two. What we do is we track time-played. Not the number of people but time-played. So for instance if the New Conglomerate has twice as much playtime as the Vanu Sovereignty on that server, then that�s when the incentives/disincentives occur. Does that make more sense?

The Eternal · 2003-02-25, 03:27 PM

I'm Vanu ya Punk

Airlift · 2003-02-25, 03:38 PM

Common Pool owns your three sissy empires

Daedalus · 2003-02-25, 03:42 PM

But how will outfits affect this...system?
I mean Sturmgrenadier already has 200 members!

Zarparchior · 2003-02-25, 03:59 PM

Damn you sterben... you beat me to it.

FraBaktos · 2003-02-25, 04:03 PM

HAHAHA you think the skilled players are on NC? Go to the official forums. The majority of NCs there are COMPLETE IDIOTS! I'm in an outfit called XoO, A vanu outfit, and we have around 25 members. I've played some games with a bunch of them, and they are good. Trust me, I'm thinking the NC will have the majority of players, but not the most skilled players. And also, Without me on their team, they won't have a chance!

AeoNELiTe · 2003-02-25, 04:30 PM

Yeah I'm in DoA and we've been #1 on Renegade since we formed... Planteside looks amazingly similar so its a good bet we'll be some of the best here too.

Aryeh · 2003-02-25, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by FraBaktos
HAHAHA you think the skilled players are on NC? Go to the official forums. The majority of NCs there are COMPLETE IDIOTS! I'm in an outfit called XoO, A vanu outfit, and we have around 25 members. I've played some games with a bunch of them, and they are good. Trust me, I'm thinking the NC will have the majority of players, but not the most skilled players. And also, Without me on their team, they won't have a chance!

Actually, if you go by the official poll, there will be more Vanu than NC. And a lot of people on the official forums are stupid, so that really isn't a distinction.

Hito · 2003-02-25, 04:35 PM

U r rite in ways....NC has the most organized outfits...im in TheForbidden and were pretty damn organized www.theforbidden.co.uk but just because were organized doesent mean were ganna be more skilled...not many people have played beta yet so were still newbs just like evryone else

Streamline · 2003-02-25, 05:45 PM

Anybody ever play Risk? The world dominating board game? This is a similar atmosphere. at times... in order to insure your 0wn survival. As an outnumbered army. Two empires may need to gang up on the bigger fish.

"defections can occur" i see a couple things here. 1. ppl with multiple accounts playing for all 3 empires when the mood is right.
2. ppl hating their team/empire/weapon choices and just wanting something different.

I am undecided and will not likely make any solid commitments or decisions 'til the game comes out.