22 o´clock CET put you spandex on!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Psychophonic-RNX, Feb 5, 2014.

  1. Phyr

    If I can't play another faction on a whim I would either create another account or not play at all, and in the end nothing changes.
    • Up x 1
  2. Wecomeinpeace

    Some of you don't really seem to get the problem here;
    It's not about the fact that a specific faction at a specific time currently has a huge overpopulation, it's about the general imbalanced population problem that, atleast on miller, has arisen lately. I mean it is just hilarious, whenever i'm logging on one faction is in the 40% area and all continents are completely imbalanced due to the factions claiming each one of them.

    This is a problem that can very well piss off a ton of new or casual players and become a serious issue.

    And sure, if someone really wants to play 4th faction, there is ultimately nothing to stop him from doing so (unless you add a hard % lock on a faction on a continent), but anything has to be better than simply doing jack sniff nothing.

    Population imbalance allways was a problem at times, but now i barely ever see remotely even numbers anymore. Day = either NC or TR at 40+%, Night = VS at 40+%.
    Combined with the phenomenon of flocking to one continent it results in totally unfun fights. You either have not a chance at all to win/defend or it degrades into whack-a-mole with a few enemy infiltrators that are just going for some kills because they know they can't defend that base anyways (which is what i am doing on defense in such situations atleast).

    Now this may be a server specific problem, but the fact that it constantly happens to me means this is indeed a problem that should have taken care of before launch. Add it to the list. :p
  3. Vorwaerts

    I agree. Neither the Character locking nor the single server suggestion is a real solution.

    My idea would be an exclusion from Alert-XP gain right after switching from characters you played for more than an x amount of minutes so you won't be punished for the passive cert grab yet still disincentivise the fourth faction.

    Still, i believe the frequency of Alerts should be reduced to make them more special, like an event. More players would keep playing for the event instead of logging off in face of the uninevitable defeat due to population inbalances.

    Is disincentivise a real word? nvm, now it is!

    -V.
  4. DQCraze

    The problem is not the overpop, its that there is no strategic way to counter numbers. Meaning if you want something just throw more people at it. Mindless game play which I hope will get better when missions come out.
  5. Tar

    TR. Your empire is called TR. It's the red guys. TR. T-e-r-r-a-n---R-e-p-u-b-l-i-c.

    Will you remember now? :p


    No, and No.

    If they made the passive cert gain really passive (i.e. not-having-to-log-every-day passive), then we could talk about a lockout timer per server

    HOWEVER

    As you should know, even in PS1 this lockout only applied AFTER YOU SWITCHED for the first time in the last 12h, and it was still annoying. If you got locked in the moment you log your first char, you'd basically never be allowed to switch at all.
    What you suggest is too strict, and on the other hand if it was less strict (like how it was in PS1, it would not solve this problem.
  6. Tar

    You're wrong. Zerg trains can still be outflanked and/or stopped on well defendable positions.
    I'm not saying this is the solution, but you seem to suggest there is no strategy or tactics dimension to this game, and that's plain ly not true.
    • Up x 1
  7. Arch

    As a TR player on Miller and outfit leader, i can attest that the current populations seem to swing quite a lot in the late evening, and it can be demoralising to be fighting and watch your own factions numbers drop while your enemies numbers seem to increase. However there is noting SOE can do other than install a hard cap on how many players can be logged in to a faction at a time, if the other factions are bellow a percentage threshold of the total population. I do not want that to happen.

    Lets get this out of the way, I do not expect any sympathy from the NC or VS players when a TR player complains about population imbalences due to the 8-9 months the TR had the pop advantage. Back then the TR only players such as myself and my outfit were unhappy with the 4th factioners jumping ship and swelling the population to stupid levels, but we knew that a hard cap would punish the players loyal to their faction more than those who play on the side that is winning, with multiple characters. But surely we can all agree that something is wrong with way things work and have been so since the alert system was introduced.

    I dont have a solution that would make everyone happy, and so im not going to complain about the imbalance. Therefore I will continue to play the game, lead my guys into the best fights i can find, and not let those who play only to grind certs ruin our evenings fun. NC & VS I'll see you on the battlefield.
    • Up x 1
  8. Stromberg

    2-3h timer to change faction starting AFTER you log off will be more than enough. really no need for things like 12h. ppl still would be able to use multiple accounts if they don't care about shared weapons on the same acc, though.
  9. Tar

    in other words it means this is obviously not a fatal state. used to be TR, now it's VS, next time it might be NC... it's not a world shattering problem.

    I disagree with solution 1. The metagame in PS1 was largely fueled by continent locking. There's no such thing in PS2, but there are alerts as a substitute. Itmight not be perfect but it's something. Without it, there's even less to do.
    However I do agree with solution points 2 3 4. The command system is too dumbed down. It shouldn't be for everyone, and it shouldn't be so spam-strict.

    Also you're contradicting yourself. The fact that "When alert ends, all ... are decimated" proves the opposite of "People are not CHANGING they are LOGGING OFF". It means people are actually waiting for the alert to end before they log off. This is a good thing.
    • Up x 1
  10. ArmedGoose

    I still think faction locking is the way to go.
    Maybe like so: once you log in to a faction for more than 5 minutes you commit to them for the next 5 hours.

    You could log in quickly to all 3 before you start your real play session to collect the free passive certs and as a professional 4th factioner take a quick look around and decide which one appears to be overpowered on this particular day and therefore you want to play.
    But after 5 minutes there is no more jumping ship if things start to go sideways.
    • Up x 1
  11. DQCraze


    No, try to outflank 300 people with 1 squad, try to hold the crown with 5 people against a zerg of 200. Get my point now?
  12. Mastachief


    I contributed to this discussion in... tech test, beta, release day, 6months ago. The horse has bolted no use closing the gate now. Empire switch timers would be nice but wont happen and would not have any measureable effect anyhow unless you made them 72hour timers and thats laughable.

    Now back to pointing and mocking.
    • Up x 1
  13. CrashB111

    Don't know about what server you play on, but the overpop faction on Matherson has always been either VS or NC. TR has survived but we never break 38% unless it is like the middle of the day and nobody is online. Nowadays we are lucky to get 23-27% in primetime.
  14. Vorwaerts

    YESSIR!

    If you had a solution i would really like to see it, if it was valid back then it might be working now. Maybe at least link to it?
    The devs changed their mind a few times so they might be inclined to reconsider a good idea.

    It would be the mature thing to do :p

    Keep fighting the good fight, surrendering is the opposite of life!

    -V.
  15. Gazatron

    Ok so....I'm a VS player of Miller. Here's how I see it

    In my own experience fourth factioning is only annoying during alerts. I'm sure people will disagree with me there but I'm sure you will all agree, that's when it means the MOST. So here's my solution:

    1a) only lock characters when alerts on that server are active.
    1b) only lock after the first 5/10/15 minutes of that alert have been played.

    2) (Alternatively) Rather than locking after the first 5/10/15 minutes just make it so they don't get XP from the faction they switched to after the given time period.

    3) the ability to switch back to the original faction still exists with no penalties except in XP gained from the duration of the alert you played with the original character.
    3b) could be made stricter by halving all XP you can earn for the remaining duration of the alert on the original character.

    No. 2 could mean XP from winning the alert, or remove the ability to earn ANY XP for the duration of the alert.

    I think locking of characters for hours is far too strict.

    Anyway those are some quick ideas. Let me know what you all think

    Gaz
    VCBC
  16. Calisai


    The problem lies when a faction gets demoralized to the point where they start logging off before the event is over. I believe that's what happens on Mattherson a lot at night. In the later events, the pops shift a little, then the remaining pop starts to think they can't win, and say "**** it, we can't win the alert anyway... might as well log for the night"... thus shifting the pop even more... and it snowballs.

    Whereas the VS are still going... "hey, we are going to win this... i'll stick it out until the end to get my certs and then go to bed"

    So yea, there is a contradiction going on. The alerts are both simultaneously causing players to stay logged in... and log out for the night... based on whether they think they can win or not.
  17. DQCraze

    Um I play daily from 6pm to 10pm TR pop has been a steady 31% average.
  18. Longasc

    We can theorize a lot about ways to prevent this, it boils down to allowing only one Empire per server.

    I mean this is done even for less competitive MMOs with PvP added in hindsight, PS2 on the other hand is a competitive MMOFPS but funnily it doesn't have this restriction that would solve a lot of issues, not only limited to Alerts, thinking of teamkiller alts and all that.
  19. Calisai


    Ship has sailed. Once they forcefully combined servers they forced their hand. You can't just lock out a player from being able to play another faction. Teamkiller alts can easily be made on another free-to-play account... which would make them even harder to stop. SOE went through all this with PS1's recruit system (free to play up to BR5, etc.) The griefers and annoying people just create throwaway accounts.

    A lockdown of 1 character per server or a timeout preventing play would effectively only stop current players with multiple characters and paid characters. New free-to-play players would just create multiple accounts one for each faction. Then there would be no way to stop them. Any restrictions imposed now would only serve to hurt your current playerbase without stopping any new players or those specifically out to cause trouble.

    Again.. I really don't think 4th faction is as large a problem as it is a problem of people logging off when they are losing an alert, and those winning the alert tending to stick around. SOE has that data and has hinted before that it's mostly people leaving, rather than just switching factions/characters.

    How many times have you been playing an alert and losing to think... well maybe I should just go to bed, or go grab lunch/dinner, etc. Whereas when you're winning... you decided to play through and wait until it's over to do that. I have a feeling that is more an issue than actual faction jumpers... ESPECIALLY after they switched it to be partial XP gain for alert participation (no more switching over and getting full xp for the win)
    • Up x 1
  20. Psychophonic-RNX

    Faction loyality is the keyword here. Was something SOE tried to highlight in the beginning but seem not to work for casual players.

    Tbh i would prefer the solution from Ostekake:

    - Remove the alert system
    - Implement CEP (that also in the context of the orbital strike dicussion)
    - Chance continent benefit to something really usefull
    - Improve ingame command communication system
    - Finally balance the factions ;)