4th Faction = 1% of Population

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Alarox, Feb 11, 2014.

  1. Alarox

    1.) Me never seeing it happen is not opinion. That is a fact.
    2.) Me not being crazy is opinion, but I have no reason to believe otherwise.
    3.) Them being 1% is fact, not opinion.
  2. DxAdder

    I think my original point may have been missed.

    I log into all of characters for my passive certs then I decide who I'm going to play.

    I don't switch characters in the middle of the Alert, I just play the character from the faction that has the highest chance of WINNING the Alert.

    This may be why this 1% number is deceiving.
    • Up x 1
  3. Phyr

    Switching to the winning faction near the end of the alert is pointless, since your exp is based on how long you've been active in it, but I would bet there's more then 1% of people too dumb to know this.
    • Up x 1
  4. Advanced Darkness

    Heh i dunno. Be grateful you can even swap between faction without a cooldown i guess. because there was this one game.... :D
    • Up x 3
  5. Wobberjockey

    and while that is part of it, that fails to explain why the TR was super popular when they had sniper lockdown with hitscan like projectile speeds ( a bug) or when the tweaks to mag maneuverability made them move like they were in molasses ( there was a point where a stock mag could only go 15 kph up the path from tarwich to xenon tech), the VS would struggle to get 25% pop on prime time.

    there is a 4th faction

    they do migrate to the most OP side

    and that includes which side has more bodies.

    all that has been said is that 1% do this ON THE SAME ACCOUNT
    there is so far no data on how many people have a separate account for TR, Vanu, and NC

    taking anecdotal evidence + a statement about one the size of ONE ASPECT of the player population != proof that there is no significant 4th faction.
  6. Nakar

    Finally, I can say I am in the 1%.
  7. Xien

    You honestly expect me to believe that only 1% of people have characters on different factions?

    Really? Cuz making a character for east faction was the first thing I did when I started playing...
  8. DQCraze

    Considering the average server pop is 1800 during primetime on my server.

    If TR is 30% or 540 people

    If VS is 33% or 594 people

    If NC is 36% or 648 people

    We would need 54 people to join the NC band wagon to give their pop a 3% bump. Now if you take 1% from each of the other 2 factions and allow 1% for new logins, this is entirely possible, 1% is the 4th faction.
    • Up x 1
  9. Hosp


    1) You never seeing it is fact. You basing your assertion on your experience is Opinion.
    2) Correct.
    3) You use the claim that "there have been many claims made that 4th faction is a problem." And those claims indeed exist, and you use them very well as a strawman argument to disregard them. You also use Malorn's Initial findings as proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If indeed they were, they wouldn't be initial findings and wouldn't continue to be investigated. But they are. Ergo, your deadset view is Opinion until such time it can be proven/disproved.

    I'm not arguing you're wrong/right, I'm just telling people your view is Opinion until such time we have a nice little chart or something by the devs to prove otherwise, and to take your Fact-Pretzel(c) with a grain of salt.
  10. Alarox

    Me basing my assertion on my experience alone was opinion, yes. But now it is backed by the numbers given by Malorn. My only opinion presented in the OP is the assumption that Malorn's data is correct.

    If his data is correct, then what I said is correct beyond a reasonable doubt and there must be some other explanation for what is perceived as 4th factioning. If his data is incorrect, then we simply don't know until we get correct data and we're back to speculation.
  11. Hosp

    It wasn't your only opinion, but it was the point of your OP, and that's what I was looking for. Carry on.
  12. vanu123

    Oh really? The data shown is spotty at best and seeing a faction jump from 33% all the way up past 40% in a matter of minutes is more than enough evidence of 4th faction for me. Maybe you're on a different server (Connery)
  13. Phyr

    You don't know if that's people switching factions, logging in, or logging out.
    • Up x 1
  14. Taemien


    Well maybe they'll add in a tinfoil hat helmet for you at some point.

    Seriously, what motive would they have to lie? SOE has the metrics, and they reported on it. They've even had a Developer, not a Community Rep comment that it was in fact the people logging off that causes the population shifts.

    So its not faction hoppers (4th faction) but rather quitters.
    • Up x 1
  15. vanu123

    Sure, a tinfoil helmet would be better than the 1 hour XP boost. Their data is not complete nor accurate. The 4th faction will only stop being a problem when I see fights within 3-5% tops. Currently it is easily even all the way up to 10-15% NC in a matter of minutes.
  16. Taemien


    Well if you can provide more accurate data than developer metrics. Then I'll believe you. Until then, I won't.
  17. ScrapyardBob

    Their data may show that 4th faction is technically only 1% of the population -- but that doesn't mean that population imbalance isn't a big game-killer that they need to address (and have failed to address for 6-9 months at this point, so now it is starting to snowball).

    Mattherson Amp Station Alert - At the 90 minute mark when I gave up in disgust, VS had 44% of the server population.
  18. Snipercam7

    Apparently I am part of the 1%.. frankly I don't see what's wrong with having a character of each faction on the servers I play on. I subscribed to the game to support it and as a side benefit I got more slots, so I went with all factions.. I fail to see why people simply moving around within the game from faction to faction inspires so much vitriol..
  19. Ender

    I'm a 4th factioner.... except I'd rather play the underdog, which is why I 4th faction on the same server. Playing VS isn't fun with 40%+ pop. Most of the rest of DA does the same, GOKU does it as well. If it's really only 1%, then the people actively doing this are mostly jumping to the underpopped side and the huge population swings are almost entirely people logging out.

    It's still funny when people crucify the players who jump faction, because it's almost always to jump to the underpopped side, yet ForumSide seems to think the exact opposite is true and they jump to the most OP side. People saying that probably only play their own faction, and most likely don't have any real experience playing another faction at all.
  20. WyrdHarper


    ...And now to quote this out of context for the lifetime of Planetside ;)

    But actually, it's been great to see VS and NC players coming over to support the TR. Today I've had a few people ask me about joining 903 platoons with their new TR alts, which is pretty cool (and again, we're happy to have you guys in our public platoons--I can promise you a fun--if intense and rowdy--experience). It's really nice seeing that there is a good chunk of the population that is deciding to make the game more fun for everyone.
    • Up x 2