[Suggestion] Critical Mass update suggestion - Add reward for least pop.

In the reward system, please add some small reward to the faction with the lowest population during the alert.


Why?
Consider a server with an undersized VS population for example. With several alerts per day, day after day after day, the undersized population will eventually fall behind on implants, certs, and equipment in general.

They seem pretty serious about tackling population imbalances and avoiding faction swapping to the winning team. I'm willing to wait till this plays out to see how it goes, I'm excited to see how it turns out.

strangely wrel said they want to do the exact opposite and give bonuses to the faction that everyone will already be flocking too,
the faction that is already winning, the faction which will already have a huge overpop,
wrel said they want to give them bonuses like cheaper vehicles or something.

its strange how the devs cant see what will inevitably happen, but i agree with your suggestion that the underdogs need a handicap/reward for not simply switching to the winning faction at the start of the alert.
(and getting 1st place winner rewards for their treachery!)

devs, you need to encourage people to stay on the losing factions, not encourage them to move to the one that is already winning!

We just have to wait and see how it goes. It sounds like the rewards for losing the alert will still be good, and if you hold off the team from winning the alert and come in 1st place then they might be better. It really all depends on if the 2 losing factions team up or keep fighting each other. I'm hoping they'll team up and not fight it out for 2nd place. I really don't think factions will be winning a lot of alerts with this system, and it sounds easy to trigger them. Get a hive or two going for a while, then when the other factions fight each other you mass up territory, start an alert, and probably lose. It could be great, we just have to wait and see.

In the livestream about Critical Mass Wrel said that they are working on some sort of way to keep the faction pop balanced. I didn't hear anything like what you are describing.

And I definitely agree- the faction with the lowest pop needs some sort of bonus

the twitch clip, he talks about adding handicaps for the faction that triggers the alert (around 4:30)

If the 2 factions team up then their combined pop should most often be greater that the 3d. This could discourage faction hopping.

Solution; people change the moment the alert is triggered to which ever of the two factions (trigger / biggest opponent) people think will win.

Except you assume that the two opposition factions will work sensibly. What will happen instead is faction A triggers alert and B & C will end up fighting each other to be the biggest land holder to win the alert allowing A to win. Exactly as how alerts go today on a regular basis or people simply deciding to go 96+ / 96+ in a Bio lab for the last hour of the alert because farming is "fun".

People that hop faction on alert wont get the full reward .. the level of reward is determined by how long you played and how much you contributed until the alert and during the alert .. if you contributed during both AND your faction wins the alert then you get the highest tier reward that's what they said during the stream

Regardless of how this alert reward plays out, they still need to crank up the XP for underpop factions.

So instead of swapping at the end of the alert everyone will just go to the end already the highest pop and do it at the beginning of the alert... don't matter.. zerg will zerg..

On a side note, yea they gotta do something about these unbalanced pops.. everyday it breaks my resolve to not faction swap to the TR.. I'm tired of getting zerged by both factions cause they got at least 5-10% more pop then mine everyday

That's a great day on Connery. Complain to me when you have to deal with 48% VS or TR once Asia logs on.

But I rather take as much reward as possible by switching to the most likely winning faction at the trigger over staying on a faction I think will lose and get zero. This is before we add in factors such as my alts have fewer and lower tier implants due to having earned less cert compared to my main and hence would benefit more from a win than my main (who has every tier 5 I'm likely to run as it stands).

Wrel said that they will punish hopping and it won't worth swapping, because you will get more staying with your faction, rather than swapping to winning faction the last moment and get dimes.

you still likely get only iso 4 and maybe just the medium ammount but whatever ...
the proof in the pudding lies ultimately in the eating ...

i have seen tr on cobalt lose alarms many times even with overpop .. i have seen both vs and nc take continents through better organsation ... the most likely thing that may happen that is that some factions may lose alerts more than another and tgat way not get the continentlock but with the way the alert may play out the faction that caused the alert is more likely to be focused on by the other two ... meaning even a overpoped tr may have trouble defending territory if the attacking factions play their cards right

Never underestimate stupid humans.
Plenty on times on Emerald I've seen the TR or VS in spitting distance of winning the alert/ continent while both focus almost entirely on the NC. Mind you at the same time the NC are trying to keep the one that most pissed us off from winning but the other idiot faction still refuses to fight the winners. Almost as if they have this agreement between certain outfits to not attack each other...

Apparently some people would rather lose than offend their "friends" on the other side.

In this case a bit of Occam's razor would help. What is more likely;
1. There is a conspiracy between two factions to avoid each other and attack the remaining one.
2. The two factions are not organised and simply care about the fight they're currently in and expect someone else to deal with it. Probably sitting on their respective fronts moaning about how stupid their faction is for nothing fighting for the objective.

I had a hard time with this game and gave it up for a while because no one seemed to care about objectives. Even organised units I'd group up with or join would just talk about where to farm next, with little regard to winning the continent. I ended up in that boat, taking a few shots and just going to the good fight instead of pointlessly trying to hold back a zerg, kind of like pnkdth mentioned. I'm just hoping that will be relieved once they start offering more rewards for objectives. I also think that the focus on individual kdr and directives made the CoD lemmings even worse. It also doesn't help that I play on Connery on off hours.... idk, I'm willing to wait and see how it goes.