Dear Daybreak, Why Still Enforce Pop 'Balance'?

A few nights ago I waited 20 minutes to get into Hossin, to join my outfit's squad. Just as I got in, it locked. Then I queued another 5 minutes to get into Amerish, which locked 2 minutes later.

Then I joined another queue to get into Esamir, and I just quit.

No, I don't want to play the overpop by choice. No, I don't want to play one of my alts, there's an event on and I want to play that with my main character that I've invested time and money on.

Queuing is the worst thing in the game by far IMO.

"How many times can you say constantly in one sentence"
"Ready.......Go"

Maybe you should try playing as the underpop faction - might give you a different perspective on the 'worst thing in the game by far'.

Waiting in a queue is no fun. Being double teamed is no fun. Being the underpop is no fun (actually if only slightly underpopped it's a definite advantage but I digress).


A few things have been suggested but until they've found a solution that works, the queues will have to stay. They do have to try something though.

Be thankful that using the current algorithm, it still allows a significant overpop of two factions (was much more draconian previously).

I've played the underpop faction plenty, I've been double teamed a lot. At least you get to play the game, with queuing, you don't. You get to fart about in Koltyr or play on an empty continent.

maybe you could maybe probably possibly not play the overpop faction? I know that the pop imbalance carries you but you learn more from playing against more numbers

As someone mainly sitting on Miller TR the continent pop doesn't really matter.
It doesn't change a thing if you got a tad more men on the map but fight against 70% in every base on every lane.
Even on the overpop faction you can be overpopped alot.

And there we go, the stock reply every time someone mentions queues 'don't play the overpop'. I am not choosing to play the overpop faction, I just want to play on my main character, especially when there's an event on, and my outfit is running a squad that I want to join.

Wherever you're getting your data, it's absolutely, 100% wrong. Connery VS regularly has under 30% pop, even during West Coast primetime hours. Just yesterday, we had 27% and were getting double-zerged by TR and NC because they wanted an easy alert win, and couldn't be bothered to try fighting each other.

As for your suggestions on how to even the odds in the event of a 2v1, you're bonkers. A flat HP increase is the worst thing you could do. I understand XP and resource bonuses, but heath boosts and other straight advantages? No sir.

sucks to suck. You're not the only one playing this game and there are many players that suffer from overpop that you simply don't even care about. You care only for yourself to get into the overpop faction as quickly as possible that you overlook those that get steam rolled on the underpop, easy fix from you is just to make a new character on a faction that doesn't have the pop advantage if you want to get in a little faster, otherwise you can just keep complaining on here about it. It's not like this forum is looked at by the devs or anything.

Forcing players to give up their community in a MMO is a death sentence to any game. Most people in this team shooter don't log on just to shoot things, they log on to group up and play with friends. Tearing apart those communities is an awful idea.

True but again people only view this from one side (the overpop). You could say exactly the same about the underpop - squads / outfits can just implode which makes matters even worse.

Something better than queues needs to be used to balance, I agree, but until that day comes (and I do hope it's soon - like I keep saying - DBG need to actually try something) - population balance is needed.

Most of us agree something should be done. But at the same time, I believe that these ques have a net negative effect on player numbers. I still think the que should go, even if other population controls aren't yet in place.

But it's not fair to say that people only see this problem from the side of over-pop. I'm sure most of us have been in the underdog faction at one time or another.

No point in engaging with you. You obviously have the ability to look into my soul and know my motives and read my innermost thoughts, as you keep telling me what I care about. You keep saying I want to play the overpop faction. I keep telling you I don't want to play the overpop faction. Population has NOTHING to do with my motivation.

I have five characters over three servers on all three factions, I have no need to make a new character to play. What part of 'I want to play on the character I've spent time and money on, to complete the holiday directive and to play with my outfit' do you not understand?

If my main was on the underpop faction, I'd play it just the same if it was over or equal pop. I LIKE playing the underpop, it's challenging. What I want is the choice, which is taken away from me, I don't want to be forced to play a different character, I want to be able to choose for myself.

Pop balance,seriously,the tr population side on ps4 has suffered greatly,was just in a midnight game where a platoon of 3 squads on nc was pounding us in 3 seperate areas and i was holding 3 guys off in one until i could no longer keep the objective on a 3 v 1 after every one in my squad got frustrated and either logged off or went somewhere else on the map,only lasted 10 minutes then they brought 3 maxes and a liberator,had 50 trs in total on map,nc had maybe 25 more than us,this is why tr almost never wins on ps4,the crashing and tking is pushing new and existing players away from tr...pc has it good compared to ps4(no offense intended)

In my experience (which is WIDE LONG AND PROFOUND), you're wrong.

I used to think they same as you, but then passed 5 years and I know now that it's a must.

Here's the argument, it's simply 2 points :

If you DONT do it, and let the pop balances, or rather imbalances become extreme, the game becomes less enjoyable for everyone :

1-->For the overpopers, who zerg their way across the whole map, mostly without even firing a shot.

2-->For the under-popers how have absolutely not the slightest chance of progressing tactically let alone getting a descent fight.


It's extremely unfavourable towards total population as people log off cause they simply aren't having fun, or, if there is another continent open, they go overpop that one (in which case you get 2 continents totally conquered by 2 factions)

As a matter fact, there was a time not so long ago when they did let the pop get really imbalanced like that and I was one of the most vocal whiners about it on teh forums.

I'm thankful towards DB as (at least on Cobalt) things have improved hugely since.

hmm can't edit?

Sorry, just wanted to add that I also felt like asking ; "what's the issue exactly"?

I mean, I don't like to queue, but if it's 30 seconds or 40 seconds, then hell, why not. If it were to be 2 hours, then I would whine and QQ.

On Cobalt, without being a member, I very rarely have to wait any period of time that I (I know it's "personal") wouldn't consider to be reasonable..

That is becoming a serious problem on Emerald. I have many hours spent on my NC main and I have to wait anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes (regardless of server population) to get into ANY continent due to either population queue or faction balance queue, and its the latter that's driving me away from the game. I'm not interested in playing as TR or VS, and when I can't play as NC due to a long wait, I'll go play something else.

It's going to force (it has been) people away from the game for greener pastures because the players don't like being forced to do something they really don't want to do. Quite frankly if you don't have population balance you may end up with the same thing on Emerald that we had on Watterson where it was mainly the NC vs TR with the VS mixing things up now and then.

I have always been a paid member. I STILL have to wait in Koltyr (at least VR was entertaining, bad bad bad decision to put people in Koltyr).

I no longer wait in that member queue. I just log out. Connery isn't that populated and I especially won't wait in a queue for Hossin.

DBG, please sit around a table and come up with some better ideas. The first person who says any of the following words should be booted from that table:

1. HIVES
2. AGILE
3. PARADIGM
4. LEVERAGE
5. SCRUM
6. MLG
7. TWITCH
8. TWITTER

Red Bold FONT above is... BINGO.

Wrel, read it.

Population balance is boring.

Contrived solutions make it worse.