[Suggestion] Solution for Overpop

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Alphateur, Oct 14, 2015.

  1. Alphateur

    Let's face it, everybody has an alt, everybody 4th factions to a degree and overpop is getting out of hand (especially during alerts- looking at you TR Connery).

    The population bonuses aren't cutting it anymore. So a possible solution for this would be aside from the population bonuses of the underpop factions, whenever a faction goes above 50% pop, the remaining 2 factions get a 2x exp bonus (same as the weekend double exp thing).

    That means in addition to the population bonus, they will get a 2x total exp multiplier. I believe this could fix the overpop 4th factioning zerging problem by discouraging the hop-on-the-zerg bandwagon-free-certs-win mentality.

    [IMG]

    Thoughts?
    • Up x 2
  2. _itg

    The devs need to finally take a hard line stance on this and lock players out of the mot active continent when their faction has relatively too many people there (say, 4% more than the next most). Force them to wait in queues to play the game at all, for all I care. The overall population will still increase, since players of the 25% factions won't be forced to log off in disgust.

    For the record, VS has been doing this for years on Connery. It's always been a problem. Of course, with the TR situations right now, it doesn't help that certain TR outfits are being huge dicks and going full tryhard while outnumbering both other factions combined.
  3. Halon

    Actual solutions would have to go way beyond any amount of XP bonus. Tougher measures would need to be taken, but the devs lack the will to fix it or even acknowledge it as an issue.

    Tougher measures wouldn't include locking players out of a continent or not letting them log in as the overpop empire, but rather massively discouraging wildly one sided fights.

    Maybe the overpop empire wouldn't be able to pull MBTs and libs, while the underpop could pull for free. What a concept.
  4. Alphateur

    Like I said, it *could* be a *possible* solution, so i'm just putting this out for DBG to try it out. If it fails then they could just remove it.

    Edit:

    Better to try than to do nothing IMO.
  5. Halon

    I wish the devs would try. Severely imbalanced pops are probably the fastest way to kill a game. Seems like this only happend during really off hours, but the TR overpop on Connery is creeping to as early as 9pm. It would be nice if the devs got some discussion going.

    With the gatekeeper and always having the esamir tech plant, I don't see the Connery pops improving any time soom.
  6. Atakx

    VS were bad about it but never as bad at this these guys are not content to spread out every base they touch will be nuked from orbit and one faction will get the worst of it.
  7. praeses

    On every continent, population lock (queue) the highest population of an empire to match the second highest empire's population +5% on that continent.

    Open up a clone of koltyr for the highest population empire and split them up evenly into sub-empires. Let them fight themselves w/o tracking while they wait in queue.
  8. Agarthan

    It's so garbage tonight on Connery I made an account on Emerald just to see what was happening there. It's an even sparser population than Connery but the overpop is VS. There's another thread about merging both US servers, I have to agree with that, and with this that there generally needs to be more strict measures to prevent this level of overpop, it's just stupid. It's not even fun. Was going to play for a couple more hours but I decided to log out instead.
  9. Ianneman

    Get rid of DBG, get old SOE team back, use membership money to crowdfund it instead.
    Less monetization, more balance
    Less casino, more immersion
    More guidance, more community etiquette, more punishments for abusive high BR players/exploiters/laggers
    More netcode development (less frustrating experience, especially for new players)

    retain more players = fuller servers = less skewed populations

    The population imbalances are only the SYMPTOMS of the actual PROBLEM: this game is severely mismanaged by the current devs and it's absolutely dying.
    • Up x 1
  10. Sovereign533

    The devs have repeatedly saying that they can't find any evidence of large amount of fourth factioning. Most people usually stick to the faction. While there are some people that do switch faction, it isn't the overwhelming majority that you make it out to be.
    What does happen is people simply log off and stop playing because they get beaten. And that in turn makes the beating harder and causes more people to log off, rinse and repeat.

    Putting a hard limit on people now will only cause the people to resent the game and thus stop playing all together.
    Offering xp bonuses doesn't really work as a good incentive (if that was the case there would be more memberships).
    Offering health/damage bonuses to the underpopulated faction will give an imbalance and completely throws the balance out of the window. Causing the overpopulating faction to quit. While this would balance the populations, it would balance it back to 0 players playing.
    • Up x 1
  11. Taemien


    Pretty much this. The devs have quoted the number being less than 1%. So if there's three hundred players then 2 are switching factions. Yes.. the number is THAT low. So if 2 players is giving you all trouble.. there MIGHT be a L2P issue going on.

    No the real problem is underpopped factions going further underpopped because of these reasons:

    1. Outfits tell their peeps on TS to login (less so much this)
    2. Players on the underpopped faction start logging out (more so this)

    The solution isn't capping players, players ought to be able to play what they like, with who they like. But there is a solution, and it can be a dynamic one tied to the relative population between factions.

    First of all increase bonus exps for underpopped factions by 300%. So that 54% bonus is now 162%. Change it so boosts and member bonuses are applied after this exp. So a 50% boost with that same number is no longer 104% but now 243%. Add membership to that and it becomes 324%. Congrats, anything you kill is a cert pinata.

    Second, change capture times based on SERVER (not continent or local) population relativity. Give them lore names such as Guerrilla bonuses for underpopped faction and Logistical Nightmare penalties for overpopped.

    Right now small bases take 4 minutes to cap and large bases take 7 minutes. If two factions are fighting over a base and the SERVER populations of each is within 3% of each other, than the capture times remain normal. However if one faction is larger than the other, the difference is applied to the capture time.

    So if the larger faction is double (say they have 40% of the pop vs 20% of the other faction) when capturing territory of the smaller faction it takes 8 minutes for small bases and 14 for large bases. In the mean time if the smaller faction attacks the larger faction's base, it takes them 2 minutes to take the small base and 3.5 minutes for the larger ones.

    The smaller factions have easier times in alerts. Drown in certs. And those players who don't want to switch (despite the benefits) don't have to. They can still play with friends. However if they choose to switch to even things up, they will be rewarded greatly.

    The idea is it becomes so lucrative to play the underdog that 4th factioning Does happen but to the benefit of the lower population. If it happens enough, the populations should even out. Or at least even out a bit more then they are now.

    The Con is of course the overpopped faction has to sit inside empty bases for long periods of time. But how is that different then it is now? The only difference is that faction they are fighting is earning craptons of certs off them.
    • Up x 1
  12. CMDante

    1 faction per server per account. Make your choice once and deal with it. Then tie accounts to ip addresses so people can't just have multiples and continue to 4th faction.
  13. AxiomInsanity87


    There is so much wrong with your idea lol.

    Are you a member?.
  14. AxiomInsanity87


    This is an extremely awful idea and you should feel really bad.

    A timer of half hour, maybe an hour before being able to swap chars would be better.
  15. AxiomInsanity87

    This looks really good but would probably work backwards as everyone would just keep trying to switch to the most underpop faction. I really like your capture time idea as well.

    As i said above this reply to your post, a half hour timer before being able to switch chars would be nice i reckon.
  16. CMDante


    It's the best way to put a hard no on 4th factioners and overpop farming.
  17. AxiomInsanity87


    And really annoy loads of current players and also give bad impressions to would-be new players.

    A timer is better. Your idea is too extreme.
  18. Taemien

    If players keep switching, then it will eventually even out. That's actually the idea. But I'll wager most are too stubborn.


    That's a mechanic that won't work, this is why:

    [IMG]

    I took that photo a while back showing how easy it is to circumnavigate such restrictions. Free accounts makes it very hard to do any login based restrictions.

    Remember, IP restriction doesn't work and is NOT recommended due to multi-user households, college dorms, and military barracks sharing IPs.
  19. SwornJupiter

    This is entirely a community-driven problem. Devs can possibly implement measures to deter players from switching factions to the overpopped one, but the problem is ultimately the individual mentality of 'I don't want to help this game. I want to help myself.'

    EXP boosts only make a real difference, and appeal, to farmers. These are not the calibre of players on a server that make any difference whatsoever to platoon logistics or faction efforts. If you horde all of the farmers on one faction, they're going to end up doing worse than the other two, so much more than if they were simply underpopped.

    The community needs to take some initiative to stop this before it gains too much momentum and we end up having like 80% TR population. We all have alts, so let's use them. Do the game (and its players) a favour and play as the underpopped faction(s)!
  20. _itg


    No. The reasoning is that no one on any side gets to enjoy the game when one faction has 50% pop, so putting some of them into a queue improves the average experience a great deal.