When people complain about population, they're probably not talking about world population.

They think that they are and that it's relevant, but it isn't, always. World or continental population can be an indicator, but that doesn't mean much when that 50% pop on a faction is holed up on a single facility, naturally.

Where most of the complaints are coming from, I feel, is local population. The fights where you're outnumbered two to one, or worse. Those are the fights that aren't fun. Those are the ones that people call 'zergs'. And these are the ones you want to focus your suggestions on fixing, balancing, or discouraging. Not whining about world populations or a three percent difference between your faction and your hated OP faction of choice.

If these fights are more balanced, then that solves the world population, too. When there's a reason to not bring +48 to a hex against two squads, the larger faction is more inclined to spread out then concentrate, distributing the populations. While they still have more numbers, it is hell of a lot easier to fight against two squads with your one then two platoons with your one. Sheer concentration of numbers: the ratio is the same, but concentration is not. Which means, you won't be as likely to get shot stepping out of the spawn because those enemies are more focusing on holding down objectives.

So be more constructive, guys. Focus on trying to give SOE ideas on how we can balance these fights rather then wail on door to their offices and demand they fix populations now now nao. Because, realistically, you can't fix world populations, given how people log in and out every minute.

This is a topic I've been looking into for the reasons stated by the OP. Some ideas from the community would be appreciated!

Specifically, what would motivate you and your squad/friends/outfit to leave an overly advantageous situation, go to a disadvantageous situation, and avoid piling onto an already advantageous situation?

Prefer carrots over sticks.

Exp boost and if there was an easy way to get to that place that needs defending/attacking.

The problem is that it is a cert farm because of the dang spawn shields. People need an incentive to leave the base, whether they are the attackers or the defenders. For attackers, if the spawn shields go away, then they can clean up the remaining defenders and will have more incentive to leave the base to attack another one since they cant farm certs.

The defenders will then quit sticking around in a hopeless situation and move on to the next base to set up a defense or retaliation to try to retake their base they just lost. The point is that without the spawn shields, the defenders wont stay in the spawn and farm certs either; they will mobilize better and it gives them time to regroup and assess their situation.

If you want people to quit farming certs, then they need a reason to leave. Once the SCU goes down, the spawn shields should go down. In EVERY base, not just certain types, EVERY base. Simple as that. There is no reason to have spawn shields that cant be taken down.


Once you do that, the population problem is solved for the most part. Of course, you'll still have the fourth faction problem, but the situation that the OP describes will no longer be an issue.

New resource system will be instrumental. Currently going to a low territory control continent is basically like asking to fight swarms of enemy vehicles with HA.

Other than that? More XP for being outnumbered on a continent + bonus XP for world pop disadvantage

Local EXP boots based on local numbers of players - probably. Easy way - no. Too much mobiliy. Transport venicles need to be more viable.

There is no fix. Planetside does and should encourage massive organized game play. Planetside HAS ALWAYS encouraged massive organized game play and Planetside is the only game that has it. Those of us that LOVE THIS ONLY HAVE IT HERE AND ARE PRETTY PROTECTIVE OF IT. XP will be and routinely is ignored by the organizations that are frustrating the lone wolfers.

Now... that being said... having Arena's might be a fun option for those seeking (n) v (n) gameplay... as long as it doesn't effect the basic overall gameplay which should be sacrosanct as this IS PLANETSIDE. Personally, I would LOVE having air arena's where dog fights are unmolested etc... there could be infantry arena's and other types also including small squad based arenas... The tricky part is making sure that it doesn't effect the basic overall gameplay.

@OP:Most players are in fact educated enough to look at world pops and not just continent pops. Many players however do not look at Hex populations.

I am honestly out of ideas that involve carrots. The GU13 change has cause more problems that it has helped because players switch factions at the start of the alert. The XP boost incentive's have largely failed, most likely because they aren't very noticeable. Players don't generally look at the +20 or 40%, especially when that have boosts. The way things are on mattherson, players are basically denying themselves anywhere from 30,000-120,000 xp per day by playing TR/NC instead of playing VS. Matching that is hard.

As for "leaving a advantageous situation to pursue a disadvantageous situation"... that doesn't strike the issue correctly in my mind. An "advantageous" situation is not ghost capping bases but instead a good fight where a player can get XP. Most players don't need convincing to find a decent fight. They need convincing to go into a bad fight that will likely see them losing ground, getting killed, losing resources, and most importantly not getting XP. They also need convincing to go cap empty territory in force so that it goes quickly and is effective.


Players might not like being in a 2v1 situation in a hex but lets examine a few thing:
1-Bringing in reinforcements, depending on the base, is not easy and requires teamwork an equally large force to begin with. If that teamwork and manpower was there, this wouldn't be as big of an issue to begin with.

2-Bailing out a 2v1 situation takes time, and the active trend is to make base capturing take less and less time with each patch. That means what we are really talking about is getting player to organize at a hex directly after the hex that is currently in combat and pushing the front lines back

3- There is a limit to how useful it is to kepp adding more players to an already losing battle. Eventually a point is reached were it would be best for a faction to send a few squads to cap empty facilities instead to better secure position or territory regardless if its during an alert or not. Doing that is generally boring and provides little xp rewards.

It seems like the new resource system and continental lattice with battle islands should be implemented before trying to address the issue of alerts and inspire players to fight for their factions good rather than their own personal gain.

Maybe try double XP for low pop in a Hex? You might want to also try making the tunnel system more obvious and elaborate. I would say a good 50% of the player base at least have no idea how to utilize tunnels properlyat tech plants and amp stations.

Something that might help? Command chat a la PS1. I know, they don't like doing anything PS1 did. But you can't move the zerg with one /orders every 5 minutes, and you can't do it if only SLs are able to use it.

Shields are a problem BUT I think the real issue is a command feature within PS2. There is really no reason to join a squad or out outfit because you don't get extra XP for it.

If there was more of a command feature in PS2 like defend this base. Attach this base. Move to this region and when people followed those direction they got XP I think more people would do things.

And you can make the whole command feature different XP for commanders do they could add extra options like faster squad drop or other things. A different path growth.

More opportunities to use logistics might get people breaking off from zergs more. I believe a culprit is that there are far too many "capturables". If bases actually meant something people would be more inclined to defend them instead of getting on the XP Train. To use an overly simplified example, if a continent had 2 bases it would be wiser to split up your faction's population so that you don't have 90% of your pop going up against 66% of theirs at Base X while their other 33% take your Base Y which only has 10% defending. Such situations allow for smaller forces of better players to attack/defend against opposing larger groups knowing that their own larger forces can make use of the population advantage and take ground. But as it stands, zergs just don't care about this sort of thing.

Bigger boost for the underpoped. The alerts didn't help this situation at all, so some changes to that. Maybe more multi continent alerts so the big force has to spread out more giving more chance to small organized squads. You basically have to reduce the power of sheer numbers so that the small guys don't get frustrated and switch over. Introduce a cooldown for cross-faction chars on the same server so people can't just switch over to the winning side at their convenience.

There is bit of a drastic solution as well. Since the incentive to join the underpop doesn't work, go the other way around. If there is one guy fighting 50 in a hex you can't drastically increase his xp gain as that would get abused. You can however reduce the xp for killing him from 100 to 2, so farming couple of guys with tens or hundreds would be meaningless. This is a drastic measure that would be very unpopular, i know, but drastic times call for drastic measures (said modern democracy)

Oh... here is one suggestion that has already be mentioned several times over the past few months.





Have the map show hot zones with the explosion graphic, but also have it inform players of the XP bonus they would get by going there.

Once you have done that, think of ways to makes the galaxy awesome, and significantly more profitable (xp wise) to pilot, so players have a better time getting around.

We have tried the carrots SOE and they have failed miserably at some point you have to break out the stick.

well, hes not asking for that, but i agree with you.

1. Bring back the server pop XP bonuses. Make them as sizable as the existing continent level bonuses, then stack them. Advertize them on the character select screen.

2. Boost XP gains when fighting within range of a capture point / generator. Full bonus if within activation range, half-bonus if farther away.

3. XP bonus for population imbalance within the hex (that only kicks in if there are at least 12+ in the hex). If you are outnumbered 3:1, then you should be getting up to +75% extra XP. This should be fuzzy across hex boundaries, where you get the maximum of either your hex bonus or 50% any surrounding hexes (which have at least 12+ people fighting).

4. Remove all XP bonuses for kills made while you are inside a spawn room, only pay out the base amount.

How about giving bigger bonuses to xp when out-numbered in the hex, and possibly bonuses to resource generation? Maybe a little participation bonus for lost alerts too or something.

I don't know how you'd go about using carrot to prevent people from dumping a platoon on a squad in the first place though.

Maybe, if your faction has a lot of people on the continent, there's an xp bonus to fighting in Hexes with roughly even populations? That'd probably be annoying and finnicky to implement.

Population exp bonus should be divided into three layers: Global, Contental and Local (hex based) independent of one another. And those bonuses should affect objective-play exp far more than they do just killing: Actually capping a base while having all three should be comparable to an alert victory, battling in this area should just be significantly (but not overwhelmingly) more profitable.

i like, except you should clarify those as "global" xp bonuses removed from spawnroom. shouldn't include boosts and sub.

FYI... truly organized empires will simply offline combatants and win with as few numbers as needed. There's no system you can imagine involving xp that can't be gamed. Not to mention many VS outfits could give a c@rp about xp... we've come to WIN.

The xp you chase is the xp you will never have as it is the xp that blinds you from true victory.`SalamanagicjacksontheVS

There are only PVP solutions to PVP problems.