Put a 24 hour cooldown when you switch faction on the same server. No cooldown on different servers. Subscriber players are reduced by 4 hours per Subscriber tier. It will lower the amount of opportunist faction switching. New accounts can get around this but they wont have their Station Cash or Subscriber benefits, so I don't really care.
I'd rather see a reward system in place for sticking with a faction on a server. Something like a cumulative XP bonus based on % of time spent on a faction and completion of objectives (capturing/defending). That bonus would accumulate to a maximum over a few weeks, say 50% to make it interesting. When you switch to another faction on the same server that bonus is reset the moment you engage in combat.
I was going with no until I got to the reset based on combat. It wouldn't stop people switchig factions to cash in on an alert bonus though and whilst they may not be actively fighting they're going to add to the population disparity. I'm currently opposed to cooldowns, particularly long ones, unless there are changes to at least passive cert collection and the marketplace.
But someone swapping in the last 5 minutes of an alert for free XP isn't going to tip the scale any. The real issue is the 4th factioners who swap around based on their "mood"...mood usually being determined by warpgate position, or whatever faction has the most OP **** right now. Could even make it reset the loyalty bonus on just straight up XP gain. About the only thing you'd not want to **** with is the daily certs.
Yes and Hodor I'd say these, combined with either restricting new character creation so that it wont allow you to join an overpopulated faction on one server or another, or a suggestion system that updates itself on the hour, so you are steered away from factions that are overpopulated.
I like the cumulative XP bonus and the reset when supporting an opposing faction. I'm not sure I care exactly what the cumulative benefit is, as long as it's effective enough to prevent people from swapping sides midway through an Alert. I'd also like to see it stop people from joining a faction that is over-populated on a particular server.
XP incentives are pointless if populations are so skewed you can't benefit. Another idea I had is that they made you pick your faction first before the server, then it gave you a list of recommended servers based on faction population. As an optional one; You could then award that player a certain amount of certifications after the tutorial based on how low disadvantaged in population their faction is.
