Too much reward for the winning team

The same can be said about losing. Why would you even care about winning if you're just going to be rewarded for losing? It lessens winning's actual overall value.

haven't we established that very few people switch to the winning team a while ago? the problem is that no one does the opposite either. the last shooter i played was cs:s a long time ago and when teams were like 10-2, people would eventually switch over. but in planetside the general mentality is "lol not my fault your team sucks". just look at miller tr, they haven't had anything that remotely resembles opposition for the year i've been playing on that server, yet they keep perpetuating this mess. woodman vs did the same and they were actually really proud of it, not sure where that comes from.

Because if you and I are both players that work the smaller skirmish fights the pop bonus means nothing. Therefore neither of us meeting in that open field of one on one or low pop should have a distinct advantage. However in the same scenario of I am running around and meet you in a smaller contest of say one on one or 12 vs 12. (Specifically near equal in the specific fight not world pop.) Then you are having the disadvantage of fighting my guys that have say 120 health instead of 100, or maybe 150% health per person. Because the pop completely unrelated to this fight is imbalanced. Well that happens and comes with an ebb and flow all day long.

Actually I am sure that if you look at my history I used to be in support of your idea. Now I see the flaw in the idea.

Besides they already give a bonus that most of us under popped small skirmish fighters prefer not to give up in trade.

Your looking at it from the perspective of the being the one with the benefit of lower pop. I am simply pointing out that you should look at it from the other side. If I am ( the lower pop at this time.) attacking your little outpost that your higher world pop team is holding, but the base your at is being ignored by the higher popped zergonots that you are talking about then suddenly you are at a severe disadvantage and back here on the forums calling for a re-balance of your suggestion. In an even fight outside of the whole of the game it is truly an unfair thing you ask for.

I would go so far as to say that wanting this is akin to wanting to cheat because you haven't developed your skills enough to compete. When your low pop you have to find fights that are attainable, not untenable. That's what I eventually learned to do after being tired of fighting the high pop head on head. Well simply put don't be a fool be a pest. Irritate them goad them into smaller fights that you have a better chance at fighting or farming for your bonus XP.

Like i said I used to see it your way. Now I am playing devils advocate. Now that I am playing devils advocate on your behalf I find myself wondering why I ever thought that thought.

Because there is no reason to fix it.

If you are looking to pick a new team. Why would you pick a low population team with no organized platoons when you can pick a high population team that wins and get spoon feed everything in the game.

Some people will pick the underdogs for a challenge but most won't. There is no reason to pick and try to build up an underdog team so they never get better.

I will spell it out in math numbers that are easy. Assuming some basic things like skills being 100% equal for the sake of argument.

If I have 5 guys and the low pop bonus. I have an advantage. Because, I now have the base 500 XP combined. As well as having (for the sake of simplicity) 20 bonus XP per person. Which adds up to only 600XP I realize. But all things being equal otherwise it is an always win situation. It would be like playing roach race with someone coded for roach race plus. They will always win because of distinct advantage.Meanwhile all things being equal you have to fight my 600 XP with your 500XP. All things being equal for the sake of reference and point you lose.

With that said that is neither fair to me as a contestant or you. I like a fight, not bullying people. I also don't like being bullied. So in the current scheme I instead find the fights I can manage. I actually seek out conts that have me at the disadvantage so I can farm bonus XP.

I would say that maybe if you redirected your line of thinking I might support it. Maybe something like even more bonus XP for kills. But to be the bully or be bullied by someone that actually has a bonus that can no way be countered I cannot support.

Also I am not really trying to shut you down for your suggestion. Only trying to get you to see both sides with honest perspective.

If one side has more players.

They can bully the other team with more resource. They get more per tick because they have more players
They have more players making killing easier and dieing harder for them
They can capture more land and when more alerts giving them more exp
They now buy things cheaper if they content lock you

If you are heavily out numbered only skilled players will be able to farm kills effectively. The rest will feed the enemy team or switch.


You can still get the exp bonus if you are on the over populated team by just finding the right battles where you are outnumbered.


This negates any positive reason for being on the under populated team

Hex base is the most meaningful population because it represents an actual battle. If A zerg brings 48+ to a near empty 1-12 base they should be penalized for poorly allocating their population's resources.

And you are sort of missing the point, if everyone tries to cherry pick battles... suddenly you will have a lot more fights closer to 50 - 50 pops.

The only benefit you might really get is a few kills at inflated XP values for being a first responder.

This will have the added benefit of also helping continent pops, because if you are massively over popped and pushing 3 lanes with no opposition you won't be gaining anything in the way of certs / XP.

Personally, I'd do something like :

50 / 50 - 0 XP bonus
55-45 - +10% for underpopped -5% overpop
60-40 - +25% for underpopped -10 overpop
66 - 33 +50% for underpop - 50% overpop
75 - 25 +75% for underpop - 75% overpop
80 - 20 +100 for under pop, no XP for overpop.

Basically at 2, 3 and 4 to 1 odds you end up with very severe penalties and once you hit the 4 to 1 mark, you stop earning XP.

Yeah, it's easy to say when you play on the over populated side. Players get frustrated and tried when any play the make can be countered by 2:1 numbers in 5 mins for 3 months straight. The teams need to be equal.

You do know that VS hasn't had its dreadful overpop for months now (on Mattherson, now emerald) and that I have a BR 94 TR and a 40 something NC on the server as well.

No matter what faction you play, you can always find zerged out fights. Continent pop rewards don't fix the mentality of "lets take our platoon and go capture this lane uncontested"

You really think the teams that drop to 25 % don't lose alot of players because of it??

Most players are not playing in highly skilled groups that can handle fighting 2 to 1 odds. Most players can't even handle 1vs1.

You really think emerald is not going to end up like that soon???

Here's the thing, they are removing global alerts.

It's not hard to fill up one Continent (in american servers at least).

So it doesn't matter if the global population is 41-28-30.
Since the alert continent's population will be 33-33-33, if the server has enough to fill that continent.

Honestly, I don't think it will.

If what you are saying is true, then leading up to the merger you would have expected the VS population to steadily increase. When in reality it slowly decreased over time.

As far as continent pops go, that is pretty much about resource allocation. If the global pops are 33/33/33 and you have one continent with a faction with 80% population, that just means they are avoiding fights and you should have an advantage at actual contested locations.

I think with the overall server pop after the merger and continent locking it won't be *as* big of an issue as it was in the past.

EDIT: Compromising valuable rewards and harsh consequences would not be a good way to go about solving the problem of zerg fourth factioners: that is a separate problem that has a solution coming from the devs in the future by way of the resource revamp, which should even the odds between small groups that fight against large groups.

As it stands right now, I am HIGHLY motivated to cap a continent, because winning ACTUALLY MATTERS. Not only do we lock a faction out, but we gain a significant buff for the entire faction. In the same instance, the LOSS would be felt throughout my faction if our campaign failed. Yes, the rewards for capping a continent POSSIBLY could enable a faction talented enough to steamroll everyone else, but even this is only temporary since a continent can only be locked for 6 hours or so, which is only enough for the punishment to sting, not kill you, nor the game itself. This is an example of true reward and consequence; something PS2 has needed since beta. The devs are finally heading in the right direction, and I would hope that they aren't steered off course (again), by members of the community who don't seem to appreciate the value of real rewards and real-er consequences.

I logged in today and was completely surrounded by war. My outfit along with randoms, were fighting with enemy outfits and randoms, tooth and nail for every inch of the land. Armor rolling around, explosions everywhere, people taking cover behind logs, and tall grass and those sparkly swamp bushes, and when you look up, you see aircraft weaving through and over the thick canopies hanging above it all; and it felt all the more immediate knowing that it all directly tied into a future made uncertain by the possibility of losing access to certain territory, or the chance that we could earn ourselves some serious discounts in our resource spending.

Leave the rewards and consequences as they are, please; it is a healthy choice for this game that needs to become more compelling.

If you do well, being underpoped, you are double winner: you win against enemy and win against odds. Should be rewarded with huge bonuses, not just mere 50% exp. Easymoders, relying at overpop, are only half-winners, since they just take what comes in hands. Discouraging overpop makes sense.

Here's the thing that Highby missed a year ago when he said he don't want to give neg. exp for a faction because they are over populated because "We don't want to punish someone for choosing an empire". Well the simple fact is if you're the underpopped faction you're being punished for choosing that empire by the simple fact you're not going to earn resources or exp as fast and in most cases simply log off rather then play for a couple of hours. The up to +50% exp means sod all when the enemy sits with 10 tanks and air units over your base every time because they got the population advantage; instead most people will simply log off and earn zero exp and the main faction will earn reduced exp because no one bothers to fight them so you end up with ghost capping a continent which is boring.

To resolve this there are two parts to the puzzle that needs to be looked at; first of all what's the downside if you're under popped and what can be done to limited (but still reward) being the most bad *** empire.

Starting with the second part first I'd simply add in a -10% for locking one continent and -25% for locking two continents (because higher administration work to manage the continents with out people on it or simply nanites!). The fact you got -50% on cost should more then compensate for the reduction but it will make people realize it's not a free meal to join the winning side at least. Secondly any empire that exceeds 37% population will suffer the following:
37.1%+ - +10% capture timer
38.1%+ - +20% capture timer
39.1%+ - +40% capture timer
40.1%+ - +100% capture timer

That will slow them down in ghost capping allowing the other empires to react faster

Secondly the losing sides. First of all the experience bonus means nothing if you can't kill stuff because you're already out manned but also out gunned in terms of vehicles because you own less territory. Hence to address this I'd add in the following:
If any empire's share of the global population becomes less then:
<30% - 20% reduction on vehicle cost and cooldown timer
<29% - 40% reduction on vehicle cost and cooldown timer
<28% - 60% reduction on vehicle cost and cooldown timer
<27% - 80% reduction on vehicle cost and cooldown timer
<26% - 100% reduction on vehicle cost and cooldown timer

Yes, that means if any side's global population goes below 26% they got unlimited vehicles to pull to try to pull themselves back up again (think of all the free vehicles kills before you start complaining!)

Secondly the capture timers are reduced as follows:
<30% - 10% reduction in capture timer
<28% - 25% reduction in capture timer
<25% - 50% reduction in capture timer

Now there's a chance for the low pop empire to actually have a chance to fight back which is not the case today.

give the XP bonus to the empire that didnt lock a continent. becaue only 2 continents can be locked at one time, just give the third faction an XP boost

So the idea of 'balance' is to give opposing teams a relatively equal battle/chance at winning. This adds challenge and fun to a pvp game.

So when one team has greatly larger number of players that is an obvious advantage, not always game breaking but an obvious advantage all the same. Now you give that time a 50% reduced cost on some things, again an obvious advantage.

Now these advantages of the over populated team (which are very large) are counteracted by ____________ to achieve balance and make fights relatively fair.

Fill in the blank.

Currently I see nothing, and no a small inconsistent xp bonus does not counter larger numbers and lower costs of things. So as things currently stand you basically guarantee and promote large advantages of one group over the other in a pvp game (essentially unfair fights). Does this not ruin or make a pvp game unfun?

Again dont get me wrong I love the idea of purpose for fights and welcome the change, I just want a counteract or balance or population to be addressed.

You kidding. I spent over 800k infantry resources on C4. You notice -10% when you do that with no membership.

so in a real war the winner shouldn't be alive they should only be half alive so the enemy can feel better that's basily what your saying @op