WDS Preseason and Upcoming Changes

I watched WDS pretty closely TR was up by almost 180K on VS and 220K on NC before the new change took place.

While it was clear the old scoring mechanic may have favored those with more population, the new mechanic is clearly disadvantages the "leaders" too much. VS are are only 52500 away from TR, and it has been 4 days. Meaning VS gained over 130,000 points, which took TR 4 weeks to gain that lead. The new mechanic shouldn't be able to do what was done in 4 weeks over the space of 4 days.

Yes, I am TR, Sure I would have liked to have won, but introducing new mechanics at the end, and extending the competition is like a sore loser changing the rules.. That is not competition... What should have happened is SOE stop the competition, clear the scores, and re-started it from scratch! Let the new mechanics out for the full time, not just at the end were one empire gets more points for doing the same thing.

It's in VS's best interest to just capture a base, and let TR capture it back, then capture it again. VS will gain more points for doing the exact same thing. That is not really a competition, there is NO SPORT which gives a side extra points for doing something, just because they are behind.

SOE wants Planetside 2 to be considered a Digital Sport.. Then it needs to take a leaf out of all sports books and not "reward" those behind for performing the exact same task.

SOE - STOP WDS, reset the scores, and start it all over again from day one with these new mechanics.. It's the only way to know for sure if the mechanics actually works correctly. Because at the moment all we're seeing is "It's best to be behind until the very last few days..."

I will bet with you my friend, TR lost this.

If anything it shows just how horrible that Bottom Right Indar Warp-gate really is.
Just look at Indar on any server, whomever has that top center warp-gate is sitting pretty, simply because the WDS is base hold related. That empire holds a LOT of bases that never get capped because the path to get there is HORRIBLE!

What might have worked better is if they removed the base links, and went back to open territory capping. Because at least with that it allows a larger amount of base capping which is rewarded for WDS.

For starters, I want to say that the rewards as they are, offer nothing to this event. If you can just log in on a random character for all of 1 minute, log off, and be guaranteed a 3 day boost, you do not even have to participate. There is nothing meaningful about or competitive about it, just who does the most work during the off hours.

Scoring won't fix it, the only way to fix it is to merge servers and come up with more creative ways to fix the real population imbalances. Just changing the scoring system does nothing to empires who are overpopulated or underpopulated. Just like what you can see now, VS are starting to take a lead but if you look at the population stats, they will show you VS have a big population advantage.

Warpgate rotation should not be a part of this event. Warpgates should be rotated when a faction captures the continent. This would offer incentive for empires to fight for that warpgate position they want. I thought this was a no brainer and Higby even confirmed on Twitter this was going to be going in place... Guess you guys cannot figure that out with the loss of your best coder.

So what does that even mean? You guys going to offer specific boosts that are faction specific only, or what? Your response sounds highly politicized and a more clear answer should be given. You are way too vague on this and it just leads me to believe you really do not have a solution right now and are still figuring it out.

While you guys just put this in, it should have been better from the start. You guys have had population stats since the game went into tech test on July of 2012.

If an empire is winning, it sounds like this is just a punishment. Why continue to fight as hard if when you loose something, it will just hit you that much harder than anyone else?

Way too much territory for this to truly work. You guys have so many hexes on a single map that all it takes is people to log off to loose that territory at night.

So, you guys want to capitalize on it like you do KDR...

Good luck, any examples? Naw, no need, we know you have no examples to give us.

Point 1. that is a piss poor way to try and get more people to play on different continents.
Point 2. Oh joy... more alerts
Point 3. So you are going to reward the empire with the most population again, nice...
Point 4. Again, rewarding for having more of a population defending. This game is all about spawn points and numbers... nothing more, nothing less.
Point 5. The only common sense one here
Point 6. It won't make anything more interesting or challenging for that matter, people will play like they normally do, for the farm.


At the end of the day, these changes are nice, but do not address the overall issue of the game. Why do you fight? There is no reason. Why do you take territory... good question, what is the point, really? So long as there is no significant advantage to taking and holding territory, no one will care and it will still all be about getting a higher KDR and more certs. AKA - Farming.

That is what it is designed to do though.

The strange thing is, if they could get a system like this working directly on population balance, there'd be no population imbalance (well assuming they could fix the game balance issues anyway).

Today is the day the VS overtakes TR.

Get your popcorn here now.

MFW Vanu barely closed the gap any further today after this comment.

ಠ͜͜ ಠ

And Vanu is a leader now. Take that you overpop bastards.

We did get 4 exp boosts, though. You can have your title and decal.

The main problem people have with WDS now is that you simply DON'T change the rules during a competition. That's a no-go. Sort of kick in the teeth for TR. "Oh hey so you guys thought you'll win... uh-ah, nope, we'll change stuff so Vanu get more points for their nightshift shadowcapping AND prolong the WDS so they have time to easily take the lead". That's how it looks like. And don't tell me we "deserve" that, cause what *everybody* in this game deserves is a fair and square fight with solid rules. Fortunately, it's just a game, no need to worry about it too much.

They wanted the first WDS to be a test. They should have made it shorter and then repeat it with changed rules, compare the statistics, and only then go and make a proper, long competition.

Well, they did sort of extend the preseason by a full week. So we'll see how that goes.

Yeahhhhhh, when we had no chance for victory some TR were saying "Its only Test, they will change next one so you will have a chance bla bla bla" but now "this is proper **** you cant change a thing". Ehh people and theirs double standards.


Everyone, this is still unfair but instead of:
Overpop gets more points because Overpop.
we have
Underpop gets more points because Underpop.

And from TR quote:
VS and NC you must teamwork to have a chance
to
WHEEEEE our big fatty overpop mean nothing now its UNFAIR.

**** I double jinxed it.

Oh well, my bet was good. I'll wait a week then I'll start a trend of nerf VS threads.

I believe they're doing this because of PR. TR's "victory" in the empire showdown -thingie was BS, and now WDS being completely dominated by TR? Which side do you think new players will choose when comparing the different factions against this backdrop?

Personally, i think this whole WDS was a huge mistake from SOE: Everybody already knew about the pop imbalances and at least in my mind there was never any question about the winner. What SOE did was, they showed the entire player population the disparity in pop balance whit exact numbers (before fudging the scoring system). That disparity is huge, and i bet many non-TR's are asking themselves "why do i even bother?" TR gets free stuff because of over pop, VS & NC getting it up the 4$$ because design choices were made to support short term money grabbing instead of building a healthy population controls (something you'd think was rather important, if you planned to run your game for a longer period of time?).

anyway, i hope the TR wins. They deserve it. Would any other faction win, the victory would taste like ash, and the decal you'd receive would be a decal of foul play. Why would anyone want to wear that if not to troll TR?

Everyone who's herpderping about it being ******** that VS took the lead because of the bonus to fighting the current winner needs to realize TR and NC now have that exact same bonus. That rule isn't going to favor any faction, it's just gonna keep the race tight until the end.

That's the best reason for wearing *any* decal though...

Even though I've only been playing VS since I started playing PS2 a few months ago, I can imagine how many TR players would be ticked off by the big changes to the scoring system; I would probably be thoroughly annoyed, too.

Don't forget that this is a Pre-season WDS, folks. This Pre-season (read unofficial) WDS is a chance for the devs to iron out a lot of the bugs in the game, scoring system included, while preparing to host the first official WDS.

Months down the track from now, TR players can laugh off the fact that the VS won something that was unofficial, while maintaining a healthy lead in the official WDS... maybe...

VS not only took over TR's lead they have gained over 20K ahead now.

It took TR 4-5 weeks to gain a 220K lead, it took VS 1 week to close that gap, and create a 20K lead, there is a problem with the formula. It's rewarding lower populations too much.

Here is the problem, On servers in which TR are still the "leaders" TR are not getting the extra points per cap, because they are the leaders. VS/NC are still getting bonus points for every server in which TR are the current "Top Dog/Leaders". This is where the new system fails, and fails pretty hard. Despite VS having a 20K lead overall, the server in which TR actually have a higher-pop and therefore have higher amount of points because of the old system, they are still being punished. It will take more than 1 additional week to balance out.

Miller, Waterson, and Briggs still have TR as "Top Dog", that is where TR has the higher population. They are not getting a point bonus, and every NC and VS capture is getting point bonuses.

I still believe SOE should stop the competition, clear the scores and start again with the new system. Changing the rules halfway though and expecting it to be more balanced is craziness.

The only hope TR has is if TR on Miller, Waterson, Briggs join the TR on Connery and Woodman first, then Matherson, and hit up VS bases. Because on those servers, TR are getting the biggest rewards for capturing VS bases.

However, being force to do that, is a pretty damn good indicator the current system is flawed. No one should have to join other servers to aid their empire....

Actually what I would find freaking funny is if all those TR on those TR Top Dog servers join NC, to take the victory away from VS..

Because NC have the lowest amount of Top-Dog servers, all they have is CERES and their lead is so small TR or VS are right there with them.

NC could win this outright because they have the lowest overall score on all but 1 server. So every base they take they are getting the bonuses. lol The problem is the DEVs will think oh it's more balanced because look it was TRs, then VSs, only to have NC win in the end.

The problem is based all around the fact that each empire started the new system with an uneven score. That is not good formula checking, that's bias results. And because of it TR felt disenchanted about the idea and stopped playing. At Waterson, the TRs pop is WAY down, and I'd say it's because of changing the rules of the competition half way through..

Highly unlikely that the NC will win or even reach the 2nd place in the end if the TR keeps pressuring on the NC borders.

TR and NC should put combined pressure on the VS borders instead (the score is also higher from what I read).

When one faction has highest scoring benefit the other 2 factions will/should go for it especially for the top wg on Indar I guess, the thing repeats and so on until the end, this just might work.

But what if the TR keeps pressure on the NC and spoils the party simply because the TR wants to be 2nd and push NC in the shi*, this would be very convenient for the VS.

I think the changes are somewhat nice in the end but for some or many TR it was probably VERY hard to swallow, giving TR the worst warpgate for the WDS and other sudden slaps in the face is a coc* move.

On three servers, TR are still the "TOP DOG" which means those three servers VS are still getting the benefit of scoring more per base capture against TR. Were as for TR it doesn't matter who they go after, it's worth the same no matter what (Less then those going after TR).

That is why the current system is somewhat flawed, at least when the starting values give TR the most points. We'll never know if the current system was actually more balanced until the actual season starts, because the empires all started with different variables. Warpgate does have something to do with it, but VS had that Warpgate for the first four weeks and they still held a second place just fine. Either VS is OP or they held a good portion of the population on the other servers TR doesn't hold the pop (Which actually looks about right).

At this point in time, VS have gained 50K point lead. That's 30K above when I posted just 8 hours ago. Why can't the SOE DEVs see that is not balanced? No empire should be able to get 50K points lead PER DAY.

There is history, and here is what I'm thinking SOE did, they took the history and applied the new system to it from the start, and saw that the points where a lot more balanced over the space of four weeks. Which is GREAT! their biggest mistake is NOT RESETTING THE SCORES!

You NEVER try a new system and start with the ---> RESULTS <--- of the previous system THAT IS NOT STATISTICALLY ACCEPTABLE!

It is a slap to the face, and they are issuing rewards the to the winner of this "pre-season"... It's not a pre-season if prices are being issues, that's a competition, and they will be issuing VS the decal and title based on what most in statistical analysis fields as completely unacceptable processes leading to faulty results.

That's SOE for you, They also nerf things unscientifically as well with multiple nerfs and changed variables instead of just changing 1 thing seeing how it affects stuff and then making the next change based on that feedback. They just seem to be able to slap weapons and mechanics back and forth with a nerf bat with the item landing on the opposite side of the balance point each time.

What difference does making it "offical" make? There's still rewards now.

You can call a Panda an Elephant, but it still remains a Panda no matter what you call it, and whilst quite obviously the first WDS was going to need a lot of tweaking (it was hardly a surprise, people were saying they'd have to weight score against population before it even started) people are quite interested in who wins (for pride and for the rewards).