4th Faction = 1% of Population

They've got data backing up their statements. You don't. Compile your own and come back. Screenshots of the ingame pop% doesn't show a darn thing. It could be people leaving other factions to go to bed. It could be people logging on mains. Or a myriad of other things. They've actually got data that shows people logging on their own characters.

I've been arguing that fourth faction isn't a big deal, just based on what I have seen in prior MMOs of people switching to alts to play with friends and guildies during player events (raids and static groups). But one thing I didn't account for is people simply logging off. You freaking found a gem here, and I thank you for it. It makes alot of sense, when people on a faction aren't winning or things are getting hopeless, they log off. And that skews the population. It makes sense, because sometimes I logoff mid-alert if I think our faction isn't going anywhere and I want to play something else.

So what are the negative nanny's going to try to come up with now? Require people to play through the alert? lol

Yeah, right. Information from the same people who claimed that ZOE Max was not outperforming.... why do I have a hard time believing their analysis.

Have you forgotten about this? https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...ou-who-are-sick-of-4th-faction-alerts.150807/

We have to keep in mind that if people log off of losing factions but do not log onto winning factions on the same server then this can have an impact as well and falls outside the definition of 4th faction presented by SOE and OP.

In other words, 1% moves from X to Y but at the same time 5% of X could just log off entirely, or log onto a different server. In game this would result in a relatively large change in population distribution.

I'm gonna agree with a lot of the folks stating that its not people logging from a losing team to a toon on a winning team. Folks in the losing factions don't have any reason to play. Take Waterson for example. NC and TR usually swap on who has the highest percentage throughout the day, with VS usually taking the rear. Ever since WDS started and NC took a MASSIVE lead, NC has constantly been over 40% pop getting darn near 50%. The folks I usually see playing arn't playing right now because VS can't get people to stay on long enough to form a decent army while NC and their multiple zergs are just stomping everything to dirt. There is no 4th, there is just the people on the losing factions not having any reason to play at all.

Want proof? I'm sitting here typing this PS2 alt+tabbed because VS has no army at the moment.

grammar check!

Want proof? I'm here here typing this with*** PS2 alt+tabbed

I don't see how it can only be 1-2%.

I have four characters across two servers and yes if there is an Alert on I will go play the faction that has the best chance of winning the Alert.

While I'm sure some people like playing the under dog, I have the option to play and still have fun and get exp.

How are you going to stop me from picking who I want to play ?

The whole design of Alerts are the problem.

A few quick fixes:

Get rid of multi-continent Alerts, these simply reward having the most people from a single faction on.

Boost the EXP for lower Pop factions during a single continent Alerts (reward people for playing the underdog)

But they have change putting the 10K carrot to the end, lower the final reward and INCREASE the bonus exp during the Alert.

Yeah when Briggs TR are winning during an alert on a continent, in the last 30 min our pop almost DOUBLES out of thin air. I wouldnt say thats 1%

I mean if you're starting hour two of an alert, and see that the faction you're playing has one amp station and might even lose that, you'll probably start thinking to yourself 'well we're outnumbered and losing, maybe time to go play something else.' Meanwhile the faction winning the alert has a fairly substantial incentive to stay online until it ends, even if they might otherwise have logged off to do something else. You can watch relative population and see this snowball over the course of hour two, even if was obvious before that who was going to win.

It hasn't made much sense for a while that people would swap midway through an alert to the winning side; playing only a fraction of the alert diminishes your rewards pretty substantially.

Malorn flat out stated that they didn't have data on people who have multiple accounts.
he only said that 1% of pop use multiple toons on a single account during the course of a day.

nothing about what he said was denying the existence of a 4th faction, and anyone who has played long enough can tell you that it's true. the NC doesn't just go from 1/3 to 1/2 of the waterson pop with people just logging off.

I have no way to gauge, statistically, the motivations that drive a player to have 3 characters on the same server from 3 different factions. Why? Why on the same server? There has to be some reason that would drive them to do this. I'm just at a loss to say what. Very troubling though. I'd rather not play with them. Might leave me hanging in a battle when things aren't going so well and then show up as TR or Vanu in the same battle and stab me in the back.

so the solution would be... to make everybody win the alert at the same time? how do you keep everyone motivated?

population imbalance is the problem, yes, but nobody can fix that, that is unfixable.

I think the main complaint isn't about "the 4th Faction" switching on any given day though. But switching to a faction because it's more powerful/fun/easy to use kind of deal. When the TR OP? Then 4th faction players play the TR. VS OP? Then 4th faction players play as the VS. Same with NC. While people switching characters the same day might only be 1% I think most people groan about those who switch sides because they think it is easier.

I would be more interested in seeing the stats on faction population who logs off during alerts. Since these "4th faction" swings can be easily explained by the shift in pop balance due to one or two factions logging off because they believe they are going to lose the alert or that they don't have fun during alerts thus they should log off. This would make it "appear" like one faction has suddenly surged in population while in fact they are only high in pop because they kept player retention during the exodus of players compared to the other two factions.

Great observation. This is the primary cause of large population swings during alerts, especially alerts that start near the end of prime time. The data suggests that players are much more willing to extend their play session an hour or two beyond what is normal if they have a high probability of winning the alert. Conversely, players that have poor odds of winning the alert have a tendency to log off at or before their normal time. The factors that contribute to "a high probability of winning" are complex, but population balance, initial ownership (e.g. do we already own a majority of tech plants?), and outfit engagement are all contributors.

And part of the reason people log off in disgust is that the XP incentive is simply not there.

• Bring back the server-level XP bonus, make it similar sized to the continent-level bonus and stack it.
• Add some sort of local bonus for fighting in a territory or hex where you are outnumbered. (My personal suggestion is to take the population of the hex and the surrounding 7 hexes. Apply a bonus to people in the center hex if the population is imbalanced and there are at least 24 players from all factions in the 7 hexes.

A faction that only has 20% of the server population should be getting about a 20% bonus at the server level, another 20-30% if they are low-pop on the continent and another 20-30% if they are fighting in a territory where they are outnumbered 2:1. When you start stacking up the bonuses to 50-100% or even +150%, at least some people are going to stick around.

Heck, with a +100% bonus, even if you come in 3rd place during the alert, you might get more XP then the leader did.

Do you really believe it's 1%?

Do you think that everyone who switches factions has characters on the same station name? LOL

My guess is that they checked by station name, and not by IP. Do it by IP and it's probably more than 1%.

And the reasons for population imbalances aren't just that people log off when there's an alert. That's stupid. I get more XP losing an alert than winning, by far!

The reason that no one does alerts on VS Briggs, is because one huge outfit has recruited a massive amount of people, and they just don't do the alerts. They sit at a couple of bases on Indar.

The 4th faction is very real. I've seen it in just about every MMO I have ever played. Denying its existence, or saying that it only accounts for 1% of the population is absolute nonsense. Saw a perfect example just this week on Twitch. Watched VS player who was losing a territory to NC, switch to NC alt on same server & redeploy to location NC was about to cap. They then proceeded to play NC. Soon as TR came & NC was about to lose location to TR, switched to TR, redeployed to same location.

You may think I am exaggerating or making this up but THIS IS REAL. I was literally dumbfounded. This went on for a good hour before I stopped watching stream in absolute disgust. If people are publicly streaming this kind of behaviour, how many are doing it privately?

Still don't believe me, read this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1eb3zu/history_repeats_itself_the_4th_empire/

This was brought up 9 months ago. Same nonsense is still going on today. While alerts have changed since the time of the above post to reward based on active time during alerts events like WDS paint a perfect 4th faction picture where hundreds of players flock to the faction with the highest population. Pretty disappointed SOE hasn't taken a firm stance on this by now & implying its a 1% problem suggests they are either downplaying the issue, do not play the game, or have no idea how to resolve the issue.

I'm all for this. The reward should be for putting up a fight. Obviously in a 9 biolab fight getting 0 biolabs means 0 exp. So you need to pour your population into one or 2. Though your numbers are a bit off, I understand what you mean.

Give a server bonus of 10% per 1% a faction is under 33%. So if TR-NC-VS is at 30-40-30 then the TR and VS get 30%. If its 20-40-40 then the TR would get 130%. Meaning if they get one biolab in a biolab alert, then they get 1,667 total (10,000 base divided by 9, multiplied by the 130% underdog bonus, plus the 20% participation bonus), and thats for each biolab. This doesn't count continent bonuses, membership, or boosts.

I'd change the continent bonuses to to be like that as well. Giving another 130% bonus if they had 20% server and continent pop.

Wow, the way you talk about it shows you really looked into it! I really respect you and every people in your team for the way you do your job! Thanks from a customer for your hard work! Really looking forward to the tweaks of the WDS though, but I'm sure you'll find a way to make it really enjoyable!