Vanu populations skyrocketing?

Yeah, well I can't wait to be able to transfer from Waterson having such a large population isn't funny or entertaining for me. I will hopefully be able to go to a server where the NC is equal to the other factions or slightly less than, if a server like that exists at the time.

As it stands now I wouldn't mind if my NC character was on Mattherson, the higher VS pop isn't a concern, I would rather fight an excessive force than an inferior one (I mean inferior in size not skill before anyone jumps in)

I wonder if there are any servers where NC is outnumbered like the VS on Waterson

From my perspective the devs really need to consider forcing some outfits to swap between Mattherson and Waterson to even out both servers. I don't think it would take but maybe 1 big VS outfit, maybe 2 tops to go to Waterson, then move a couple of TR/NC outfits to Mattherson to level out pops on both servers.

Hell it might not even take that many to balance them out.

That could work fine. Problem is the devs have shown no desire to even attempt to fix the issue.

I wonder if any big outfits like GOKU would even want to swap though. I guess it would be difficult to get an entire outfit to agree to it, some may like the imbalance in their favour.

Yea, that's the problem. No one on Mattherson VS is going to step up and go to Waterson to balance out the servers and give up their gravy train. That's why I said the developers need to force transfers.

Of course like you said, the developers have not even so much as made a statement about this problem.

Connery can have a high VS pop during odd hours, but if you play during prime time, you will rarely find them with highest pop. Before the Connery/Helios merge, the VS actually had a very real issue with low pop.

Hopefully Matherson will get sorted out soon, as large imbalances like that reduce your chance for fair/fun fights.

Is SOE even acknowledging the issue or are we still pissing against the wind?

I doubt SOE would have the bottle to force an outfit to transfer, the backlash could be quite unsavory. It would have to be a proposal that they would make to the larger outfits and they would volunteer to go through with it and it would still be in the players hands. With this solution I doubt SOE could force the issue.

What SOE could do however is prevent any new VS character from being created on Mattherson and only allow TR and NC, until such a time as the populations are balanced and on Waterson the exact opposite where only VS characters are made available for creation.

Also when and if (at this slow rate) server tokens do come in they need to manage it so that servers aren't created where any one faction is dominant. Transfers need to be blocked to servers where that faction is already over a 35% max population. These numbers would have to be taken from a 2 weekly log in rate to keep it updated with the true faction populations based upon current play patterns

Otherwise there could be a situation where on server has more TR (apparently) because more TR character have been registered, but aren't necessarily played. I have a VS character registered on Ceres for example but have not accessed it in over a month and I'm sure many players have similar characters that they have but don't ever use. Those can't be taken into account when a total server population is formulated.

It may seem unfair to block players from certain servers based upon the faction they want to play but pop balance is one of the important issues SOE have to get to grips with. Yes there may be people wanting to play a certain faction on a certain server because that is where their friends play but the overall competitive environment needs to be taken into account more so

According to the source of all official communication, Higby's Twitter account, they are aware of population frustrations on Mattherson.

Who thought Connery was going to turn out to be one of the most balanced servers this game has seen? I don't think anyone, but on this server, every faction seems to take turns with the population. Well, more so VS and NC alternating every day, but I've TR plenty of times with the highest population (probably when they're winning an alert).

And as far as VS dominating the population in the morning, where this come from? Helios was very NC heavy in the morning, and I remember Connery being TR heavy around the same time...

I dunno if they CAN force an outfit to move. If the announce it, the outfit could very well disband and reform under a new name. If they do not announce it, they may lose players over it and start a fear or rumors of them "force transfering" to "encourage" buying transfer tokens. Speaking of transfer tokens, I have this feeling that SOE will want them to sell whatever they can. As in, not limit who can go where as this would hurt sales. I think the developers would want to restrict it but I believe their "overlords" would require it to be open to all, to grab that extra dollar. And as for restricting who can make what character where, They want to "focus on new players" (or so they tell us) the last thing they want to do is discourage the vanu characters from bringing new players (friends) to the game. So, while in theory, that is a great idea, never gonna happen.

Our legs are very wet at this time.

Screw forcing outfits to move, voluntarily, maybe. Kick the 4th faction pug players back to the NC (Speaking mostly of Matherson) . If of course SOE is able to keep track of all the players that suddenly defected to VS a week or two after the ZOE release. They're the problem, they shouldn't have done something that was so blatantly wrong anyway.

I don't know where it came from, but for the past week, every single morning, VS has had at least 41% world pop, as high as 48%. I don't often get a chance to play during prime time, but I am glad to hear it is pretty balanced at those times. This 40%+ world pop lasts for at least 4-6 hours every late night/early morning. I cannot speak for other times of the day.

The whining is never ending. Tell you what. Give every Vanu the option to go to TR or NC- full transfers for items/level/etc. Then delete Vanu from the game.

Guess what will happen? Yep, TR will say the NC are OP and NC vice versa. Stop with the whining already. This is the same **** that was constant in the 10 years of PS1. The current 4th faction FOTM was cried over constantly.

TL/DR: This whine is 10 years old and has spanned the entire existence of Planetside 1 and 2. There will always be a faction that is FOTM.

If it is currently your favorite faction? Don't be arrogant and **** talk- it is going to rotate. You will eat your words.

If it isn't currently your favorite faction? Wait your turn. It runs in cycles and your turn is coming. It is a guarantee.

I highly doubt it. GOKU are the people who CAUSED the imbalance on Mattherson, they were a NC zergfit who all defected to VS and many of them play off hours which up until TE left was when the imbalance was a problem.

They don't care at all, if they did, they would not have caused the problem in the first place.

This post is correct. Connery is mostly balanced pop.

VS have japanese/asians and aussies who play in the early morning hours.
The former tend to backrage vs from the spawns when you are trying to defend
the scu, probably because of ping. So its kind of a mixed benefit.

Damn Woodman VS had alot of territory that saturday, good for them.

Well I don't know about GOKU's origins but if that is true that is disappointing they would want that. An imbalanced population doesn't benefit anyone in the long term. It just pisses people off

I think transfer tokens will make the problem worse if restrictions aren't implemented. I could easily see people on underpopped servers transferring to servers where their faction is dominant.

You are correct. But like you said, how do you know who these players are? You are bound to catch innocent players who just happened to make a new profile at that time.

It seems to me that players would WANT to balance servers to have better fights. But based on the feedback regarding balance over the months, and now the decline by TEST to transfer to Waterson, I am starting to seriously have doubts. It seems that no one really wants to give up the gravy train, and only those negatively affected want to see something done about the problem.

That's why SOE should have got things right the first time. You can't just "balance" weapons and expect the populations to rebalance. Players have flocked to VS for the weapons and MAXes, and even if you nerf them, do you think these people are going to start brand new characters in TR or NC after spending time and $ on their VS? Most won't.

The devs screwed it up, it will take a long time to unwind and will get worse before it gets better. No point complaining.