Last 100 Alerts on Emerald: 57 VS, 28 NC, 15 TR

I've recorded the results of the last hundred alerts on Emerald, as reported via the Alert Tracker, and, guys, the statistics are grim. Is anyone on this forum willing to stand up and defend the idea of VS winning almost 60% of alerts as reasonable gameplay? Being TR on Emerald absolutely sucks, and it's going to suck even harder with Escalation adding new currencies that give more weight to alert wins: Even if the fact that one faction is overwhelmingly dominant wasn't bad enough standing on its own, this now directly translates to VS being able to call in more War Assets, Orbital Strikes, etc. This has been ongoing for at least months, possibly years--I made a thread about it last August, and if anything it's worse now. I understand that other servers aren't necessarily this imbalanced, but Emerald is something like 30% of the total playerbase, so this is absolutely impacting a huge portion of the game. I also understand that the problem here is mostly that VS has better strategic-level organization led by a few coordinated outfits rather than a population or weapon imbalance, which makes the situation harder to directly improve, but at some point that's a factor that the devs need to take into consideration here: regardless of the specific reason why, the fact of the matter is that the win ratio here is so grossly imbalanced that it can't just be brushed off forever. At some point something has to give--it isn't reasonable to expect TR players to stick with the game for any length of time when these are the kinds of results we see.
For reference, thread from August: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...snt-locked-a-continent-yet-this-month.252333/
And alert tracker: https://ps2.fisu.pw/alert/ The tracker only shows the last couple of days, and as of this writing those have been unusually bad for NC, so right now it isn't perfectly representative of overall trends. Here are the full stats since 2/28:
TR VS NC Total
Esamir 4 19 6 29
Amerish 5 14 8 27
Hossin 3 15 9 27
Indar 3 9 5 17
Total 15 57 28 100
0.15 0.57 0.28

I won't comment on your main topic, but there is one point that you raise which I hadn't thought of, and which is particularly interesting :

In the case where one faction dominates (for whatever reason but particularly if it is because of more active, larger and/or better outfits), it seems to me that this patch will accentuate that dominance.

I"m really interested to see how things turn out.

Personally, I'm super-tired of people going "xx faction wins all the alerts OOOPPPPPP" based purely off alert statistics because it tells us absolutely nothing about *why*. Invariably, they try to claim that because <insert not-my-faction> wins more alerts than <insert my-faction>, the other faction must be OP.

Such things make no allowances for other variables. For example - on my server, Miller, the alert winner is usually whichever faction has an organised outfit running ops and/or public platoons.

When our better NC outfits are offline (or just derping about for lulz and kills) virtually the entire NC pop will vanish into the nearest biolab (or beeline towards it if one isn't contested) and spend the rest of the alert in there. They can easily be ghost-capped down to like 15-20% territory without giving a damn or being arsed to leave the biolab.

Similarly, when the TR Russians are running ops, a TR victory is virtually guaranteed, unless they did something stupid like piss off both other empires just before the start of the alert (in which case they'll get double-teamed into oblivion).

Finally, VS's biggest zergfit DIG almost always has public platoons running. I seldom log on without seeing *at least* one DIG platoon (occasionally two) roaring around the place. If the other two factions goodfits aren't running ops, VS is likely to win using the W40K Imperial Guard's favourite tactic.

So please... pull more information or shut up. This sort of whiny crap doesn't do anybody any good.

Well, there isnt necessarily better information. You can speculate about why certain things happen, which you just did, but ultimately thats not very good information, none of it is actionable.

It would be nice if the Devs did something more about faction balance, but they wont unless people like the OP play squeaky wheel. Squeaky wheel is very effective.

Also this community is full of people who havent gotten to the point of asking why factions win or lose more than they "should", they're still stuck in some sort of denial phase. There's nothing wrong with the OP trying to make a case that there is a problem.

Look, no offense, but do you even know what you're talking about? Have you *looked* at the stats of the actual ingame equipment? So much of it is virtual copy-pasta and people are *still* claiming that one or the other is OP. People ***** when they get beat. That's just the facts. And while lots of people might scream "OP" about all the things, the simple truth is that "opinions are like arseholes.... everyone has one and most of 'em stink."

If anything, PS2 is *too* balanced. We need *more* imbalance (of the asymmetrical sort) than we have now, because the vast majority of the time, the factions feel virtually identical.

Precisely. This is an important distinction which almost always gets lost in threads about faction balance since so often it becomes a discussion of who are the most skilled on an individual level (using weapon data and so on) when the point which is most often presented (and often ignored or misunderstood) is that consistency is key. You can have lots of really tacticool people running around with their mates but they're going to lose spectacularly against an organised blob of planetmans. They might get in some epic farms and MLG ready stats while doing so but will inevitably lose (usually screaming at the incompetence of others and mocking others for being in a "zergfits").

So it reiterate the point, most of the time when people bring up "X faction has better organisation" they are NOT referring to individual skill or anything of the sort. Instead, they are referring to X faction having more people showing up who are willing to, despite knowing they might not be able to farm dem certs at peak efficiency, fight the big fight. That's teamwork, the ability and willingness to fight for the unit rather than your own selfish goals.

On a different note:

There are other factors too, and I'd argue that NC has, by far, the weakest MAX at this point. An NC MAX crash used to be feared, now it is just a meme. If we're going to have asymmetrical balance you can't just remove the aspect of a faction which is supposed to be terrifying up close while having their infantry still having most of their weapons be the most effective in ADS (close mid/mid range/long). Meanwhile TR has their DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA and VS have had their middle of the road but effective run. The fact the devs cannot summon up the balls to admit this monumental mistake is pathetic. One can only hope now that Escalation is being rolled out they'll put some time into the most glaring balance issue in the game.

Better strategic-level organization is essential to winning.

What has to give? What should devs do?

Fair enough you didn't call for more VS weapon nerfs. VS has NS weapons to fall back to in any case, TR I'm already using plenty of NS gear already to fill their gaps and too many inadequate guns.

If you don't reward teamwork & coordination with wins, there's no multiplayer faction game.

You want TR or NC to win more? Play as TR or NC, and try to organize with them.

I play VS & TR primarily. TR is hard since there's very little organization, average players need training, and the bit of outfit work I do doesn't involve a lot of players or can take place often enough.

Do the work to improve personally, to provide support to your faction in times of need, and to help the average player, and we'll all get better random faction members, squads and good fights.

I've yet to see any proof that the VS are more organized. I even have to see proof that outfits in general win alerts, all I see is subjective "but I've seen it so its true" proof. On that note I've seen outfits fight unwinnable fights and blame everyone else just as much as them actually stepping up and winning a fight.

If one team is more organized we would see this in the collective statistics of common pool weapons. Why should be obvious: players who have higher organizational skills/are better at following would also have different skills overall. Their method of attack would differ and be reflected in their stats. Yet when you look at common pool weapons the VS, TR and NC are virtually identical. That should not be possible on statistics of global populations if one faction was so vastly superior in organizational/following skills as is suggested by the people who are on that faction.
Its when we look at faction-specific stats that we see differences. Like the Magriders higher amount of gunners but the VS not having any more gunners on common pool weapons, leading to the conclusion that it is specifically the Magrider and not any coordination/teamwork that causes this. If it was coordination/teamwork we would see this back on common pool weapons right? Yes I'm repeating myself because that simple conclusion seems to be hard to swallow and is preferably ignored by VS fans.

So could anyone provide any factual proof that the VS are superior at leading/following? Considering the massive lead the VS have (and since forever) it shouldnt be hard to find tangible proof right?

Only proof I can provide is from my own experience: VS side I can list a number of outfits I can or do run with that are highly organized and effective, be it infantry, armor, specialized, farming, or a mix. TR I can't, because there aren't many.

On VS randoms always watch my back. I don't make scoreboards as often because other VS are really good. VS randoms revive, repair, pull sundies, and follow squad leads without needing so much incentive. I can't quantify these beyond repeat personal observations.

On TR all of that reverses, and NC doesn't seem much different, though only BR93 there so my observational comparison isn't even as between TR & VS.

I am not sure how well common pool weapon comparisons would fare to try to account for or explain differences in tactics during continent alerts across all players for all times. My guess is whatever significant differences may exist get blended and overshadowed by the differences in play styles, tactics, skill, and even choices of using or not using NS guns.

in Connery the VS does well only because we have few some battle hardened guys that actually know how to play, however our tryhards swap factions every day, so i guess that keeps some balance, the NC can't get a decent command and the TR have a lot of good players and leaders but they usually make the wrong choices.

Unfortunately alert wins are pretty much the only objective measure of success we have as players. Perhaps SOE/DBG/Whoever the hell it is now have or have had other data to work with, but we can't say.

Furthermore, the sheer number of alerts which have been observed and recorded washes out variability. If there is a significant difference over a long period of time, there must be a significant cause.

A big problem with this sort of argument is how limited carbon-copies are. The majority of such weapons are infantry-only, with the only vehicles being less combat oriented and/or use ES weaponry. The only important NS-only fighting vehicles are the lightning and lib. (A harasser is only as good as its gun, and there's a big difference between Mjolnir/Vulcan/Aphelion/Halberd harassers. Everything else is mostly transport.)

Most infantry weapons outside of (most) small shotguns, non-ES RLs, and non-ES SRs are different. MAXes, MBTs, ESFs, and all their weapons, as well as the ES weapons of the flash and harasser are all different. Equipment is notably different across factions and while certainly some people act as though minor variants are significantly better or worse, there are some cases in which they may very well be. ES equipment is certainly different enough however to cause different results.

As always this is just objectively false. No, the NC/TR/VS aren't more organized than the NC/TR/VS and no, this does not equate to a faction-wide level nor does it cause victory in and of itself. Nor is it true across all severs across the world across several years of playtime.

Remember, players aren't limited to only one faction. Many player plays more than one or even all three and don't suddenly become new people or radically change their behaviours because of faction.

I've done the maths on the probability of this happening randomly before as have others as well. If people want I could reasonably foresee doing another round of statistics. Could maybe try another method too for greater certainty in a consistently abysmal result.

Thinking maybe this time assume the whole PS2 population is normally distributed on its own, then calculate the probabilities of the top 33% of players joining the top-performing faction, the 34% average players joining the mid-performance faction, and the bottom 33% of all players joining the NC lowest-performing faction. Each "player" would be drawn from the respective bell curve pool and given a 33%/34% penalty to probability to joining his respective faction to simulate random selection causing the distribution of players as we supposedly see now. Multiply the probability of each tier by the number of players for the final result. Given the difficulty of precision in this method, (technically the probability of a new player joining each faction respectively diminishes as the pool of players of that tier decreases), the results would be broadly speaking and may not reflect a perfect theoretical scenario. I was never good with factorials or nPr or nCr, sue me.

Regardless, there is virtually nothing to suggest alter victories are anything at all to do with player communication or cooperation. And honestly, to suggest that one faction has more willingness to fight for a common goal over selfish goals? Man don't even get me fncking started. No, people almost always act selfishly. Altruistic behaviours are extremely uncommon in anonymous situations where a large number of others are around, and again there is little to no variation in faction playerbase nor is there anything to suggest any given faction would cause or incite this behaviour in any way.

There is exactly one (1) universal constant factor and we all know it. Whether a person wants or is ready to admit it, equipment is the only objectively viable variable capable of causing the observed patterns. Nothing else is uniform across time and space as set hard data points in a line of code.

When sometimes the VS gets assigned alert victory arbitrarily, that might explain at least a part of that.

Good thread so far, haven't seen [yet] the usual Wall of Text about the Betelgeuse OPness and why she is the mother-of-all-LMGs and the cornerstone of VS superiority

Jokes aside, we simply miss in-depth statistics to be able to find out which trait or traits are different (if any) between the VS and NS and TR population given the fact that according to the law of large numbers each faction should win 33.3% of the times.

There are tons of possible scenarios:

1. VS players play more often
2. VS players have more experience
3. VS players have higher KPM
4. VS players have higher KDR
5. VS players have higher SPM
6. VS medics support better their teams
7. VS players have an higher outfit vs. lone wolf ratio
8. VS players pull more vehicles
9. VS ground vehicles have higher TTL
10. VS air vehicles have higher TTL
11. VS infantrymen have higher TTL
12. VS infantrymen have different class distribution patterns
...

And each answer could help to narrow down the possible answer or answers. Just to make a simple example:

If VS players play on average the same amount of time and have similar experience distribution curve, then either they have better equipment (vehicles? infantry weapons? Both?) or are better organized. But you should be able to dig more by comparing the statistics of infantrymen (KPM, KDR, SPM, ...), which classes they choose, whether the medics are better, whether they have more outfits/platoons/squads operational etc.

Otherwise, we can look at the alert statistics and debate until our faces are blue without accomplishing anything.

Apparently this is a known thing that comes from draws - and it's not "VS biased" whatever you may thing. Lacking any information from the devs, we've only got player-discussions to go on, but consensus seems to be that when a draw happens, one faction gets the win (cont lock, benefits and any bonus like cosmetic unlocks) and the other gets the remaining rewards (certs and ISO).

Honestly, there is no point. We do not see eye to eye on this matter. I do not think the mentality of winning at all cost is altruism. I should perhaps have used the word ego-centric and/or focused on short-term gain versus long term rather than selfish. Crucially, I do not think it is an objective statement since you are inferring more than what the data is telling us by claiming it is only viable factor to consider. A false dichotomy, if you will.

As for the rest, we know where we stand at this point.

Oh, and VS has not being dominating throughout PS2's history nor is it the only place for teamwork. In its heyday TR also had a massive organised machine (BuzzCutPsycho, GOONS, BRTD, MM, to name a few) which showed in the alert wins too. For some reason VS has become the scary bogeyman in this drama despite VS/TR having performed very similarly (as per PS2Alerts). The only constant is that NC have uniformly fallen behind... Something is clearly not right here but please stop acting as if VS have been on a 7 year rampage as it is not true and it makes these discussions unnecessarily bogged down in cross faction drama.

It is a well known fact on all servers VS generally have less pop and higher IQs with better teamwork. NC have higher TK rates and TR have the lowest IQs.

Complaining about faction balance implies that you believe the reason for the alert wins is because the faction that wins is more powerful, has better weapons etc.

In fact, the opposite could be true, but that lower power means that they fight in a more coherent or team oriented manner rather than simply lonewolf farming for kills.

That's quitter talk!

Anyway, altruism (going off an ecological definition since the psychological definition is a bit loose) is when a person exhibits a behaviour which benefits the recipient and harms the actor. Serving the faction instead of serving the self costs the actor, and is therefore altruistic.

But not, the only dichotomy here is the usual "it's the players" argument. Equipment is the only viable factor to consider, that's just the reality of it. The one thing that either doesn't change or changes so little over the observed period of time it's functionally static, as well as being truly unique to that faction unlike the players.

People can change over time. They can develop or lose skills and communication abilities, can change factions or playstyles, and are frequently changed and replaced. Not many players I think have played since the beginning. The playerbase five, six, or seven years ago isn't the same as it is now, yet alert trends have been fairly consistent. Hell, one might even say the playerbase isn't even the same as it was yesterday.

Therefore, the consistency can only be ascribed to consistent factors, of which there is but one.

Who said anything about the VS dominating here? Not I at least. (I get it though, these threads all sort of blend together after a while.)

In any case though, the playerbase argument has been raised again and therefore the subsequent counterarguments must be as well. Everyone ever knows the NC have always been at the bottom. The argument that "teamwork" and "leadership" is what wins alerts and not equipment implies the NC's equipment is fine and that the players are not, which is not supported by any evidence at all with much to the contrary.

Well, the instance I am referring to was that NC led the alert by 10%, 10 seconds before the end, then VS won for some reason. If that ain't biased, it's a friggin' huge bug.