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

Were you actually watching the counters and the map *as* the alert finished? I've seen that sort of thing happen on more than one occasion when one Empire pushes through a cap that cuts off a bunch of the "winning" empires territory seconds before the alert end. Or did you go back to shooting mans, and just not notice that sort of thing happening? Not an accusation. God knows PS2's got it's share of bugs, just trying to rule out the obvious.

If one side is always winning the alerts quite a few players have alts of all factions and they will try and swap to the side that they think is going to win to gain the extra alert points.

Thing is... alerts are pro-rated by the amount of time you spend playing it. Log in in the last few mins and you'll get almost nothing. And honestly? Even with over a *decade* of experience in Planetside I still can't reliably predict the alert winner from the starting position, so more likely than not, you'd have to wait until at least half-way through, and even then it's not a guarantee.

Nope, I'll just stick to picking my faction at the start and seeing it through to the end.

I only play nc on cobalt but I see it happening there. People also cycle through the fractions looking for voice led platoons.

As said, I looked at map and counter 10 sec before the alert finished. And there was no cap goping that lasted less than a minute at that point. So a legit switcharound is impossible.

The Enclave was exactly who I was going to bring up. When the game first started TR was very much the Boogeyman. VS was the faction you made fun of because they wore spandex and had stupid music.

In the end it all goes around in circles. Just a cursory look at the early threads made on this forum is telling. This thread could have been made yesterday.

Ah. That's all I was trying to check for. You hadn't said in your first post, so the immediate reason that sprang to my mind was one of those last-minute switcheroo things.

Yes, that lie was made early on. In fact even in 2012 when the game was released this mantra of VS being superior in skill was used. It was also used as the reason why ZOE was so good. Or the original Saron anti-tank sniper. Or all PPA versions etc etc. Also fo you remember how horrible the map layout was in the early game with most fights happening on Indar but Indar being highly unfavorable to certain warpgates?

But... where is the proof? With the VS being so clearly superior in skill, it should be childsplay to prove it right? Show us!

Guys, if you think this isn't a problem, GO PLAY EMERALD FOR A FEW MOMENT AS NC OR TR

It's just too obvious that lot of people just switch vanu cos they win more hence starting the devil cycle
Look at the low BR high directive players in vanu

If that would have been the case I wouldn't have mentioned the instance. Witnessed those often enough, although that would have been one of the most extreme cases with flipping a 10% margin.

Yeah sorry but you're attempting an A&&Pull on reverse logic here.

I.S.S. ...If 1 Faction is too ANNOYING to fight either b/c they're harder to visually register against dark grey tile sets or at night where everything takes on a purple light filter, They're more accurate at every range, their ESF is the hardest to hit when it's bobbing up and down facing directly TOWARDS you, Their LMG is the highest DPS for the lowest spread/recoil, their MAXes have weird "holes" in their hitbox geometry (that I've literally flown Phoenix missiles through),

... If you have all of these subtle annoyance factors, then it comes as NO surprise when you ask pubbers who are always at a NC-TR biolab fight "hey VS own half the map, why aren't you fighting them?" ...it should come as no surprise when the vast majority of responses are that they hate fighting the VS and they leave it at that...

The average person, you have to remember, can't even QUANTIFY why they'd rather ignore Vanu most of the time. But that doesn't mean you're NOT a slimy snake oil salesman if you try to look for other excuses that completely ignore the game Stats and mechanics where they FAVOR Vanu

Lots of alerts in the last couple days! Higher pops due to Escalation means more continents are unlocked, so they're coming faster. But the pattern is the same:
VS: 86/157 = 54.8%
NC: 47/157 = 29.9%
TR: 24/157 = 15.3%
There are a lot of people here arguing about why this is like this, but honestly I don't see that as very important. It is a fact that the VS is overwhelmingly dominant in alerts on Emerald--there are some people in this thread who seem to want to argue with that, too, but they don't get to, because the data is absolutely unambiguous on that point. The relevant question isn't really 'why', it's 'what should be done about it'. Because even if the problem isn't that the VS have a literal mechanical advantage in terms of weapons or whatever (which it might not be! We don't have enough data to prove it either way. The devs might, but we don't, so arguing about it is fairly pointless), improving the other factions until they get to a point where they're competitive is still a viable solution to the problem. It can't be the case that VS wins four times as often as TR, guys. No matter what faction you play, or what your anecdotal experience may have been, surely you can take a step back and recognize that there has to be an enormous systemic problem somewhere for that to be the case. It isn't a viable state for the game to be in.

The overall alert wins might result from the increased amount of organized VS coming online as a result of Escalation. The VS has always had a long history of organized play and decent leadership. From my personal experience, the VS just work together better. I remember shooting a friendly VS by accident. I apologized and he responded with, "It's okay. Better to be killed by you than the enemy." That level of self-sacrifice, faction loyalty, and altruism is hard to find in TR or NC. Even when the VS aren't in organized squads, they work together better. There's always a sunderer. There's always a medic. There's always an engineer tossing out ammo. It's pretty ridiculous how well supported I often feel while playing Vanu. Ultimately, that culture of cooperation establishes a huge reserve of organized Vanu which far surpasses the organized reserves of TR and NC. I would argue that the resulting alert wins is not a product of faulty game mechanics but rather the result of a cultural legacy that dates to the beginning of planetside. Ultimately, it will equal out but a lot of butt kicking will occur before the TR and NC get back up to speed.

I broadly agree with this. My anecdotal experience has been that when we're about to take a base from the VS, it's extremely common for an organized platoon to show up at the last minute and shut it down, whereas that happens less often against the NC. I don't think I agree that it will equal out, though, at least not in a way that's useful in the near-term. It's been like this for literally years; why should we expect it to change any time soon, or even in the lifespan of the game? It's certainly possible that a couple of years from now the situation will be different, but that isn't very helpful to the TR players that have to spend the intervening time getting farmed ~85% of the time.

I believe every faction goes through a phase where they get their butt kicked. However, this butt kicking is what leads to the development of more organized outfits. The hotter the flame, the less time it takes for something to cook. It's the same way with NC and TR leadership. The constant overwhelming VS pressure will drive them to be better leaders, fighters, and tacticians. Eventually, the VS will grow complacement and the other factions will grow stronger.

Even if it's true and the reasons are minute the majority will not accept it due to a nerf being the solution. Nerfs are badz!

So keep it simple.

The worlds best and most organised players have an inbuilt switch triggered by purple. Done, the end.

I'm not making any claims, Forumside is hardly a Bastion of well-thought arguments backed by evidence. I was just amused by the deja vu at play here. The only constant seems to be it's usually the VS or TR that get the "OP" moniker, but I'll wager you will find similar claims about the NC if you dig hard enough.

I have played as TR since launch (On Waterson, if i remember right), it was huge, organized and i was proud of being part of it. I used to stick with EgO guys back in the day and they had a lot of strategies to keep the wins flowing.
But even before joining an organized outfit, when i was just a newcomer, i loved the ease to find an organized platoon even being a stray planetman. There i learned basics of how not to suck, which was great!

Over the last few years, i haven't played much, but everytime logged in looking for some action, it was HARD to find a decent platoon to play with. Then for the first time, last week i've tried playing as VS, because i always loved their design, but was too loyal to TR to switch.
In just one week i'm overwhelmed by the difference between TR and VS platoons, because VS seems WAY MORE organized than TR.

If the problem is really organization, i don't think that the devs have much to do about. The "influencers" on TR should have a different approach on the war, otherwise, it's gonna continue happening.

Yes there have been claims for each faction since the beginning, but what has been missing for 99% of these discussion is proof. Everything is subjective "I feel this, I experience this, therefore it's true". And if you take things individually this is true: The original Vanguard Shield was one of the worst things to fight as it made the tank completely indestructible for 8(?) seconds. It made playing against them terrible.
The problem is that this individual thing has to stack up against other individual things. Like the original Prowler which could destroy entire vehicle columns (including Vanguards with shields) solo if Anchored in the right spot. Or how some noseguns could wipe out entire squads in a single run. But there's also people who claim that one faction's common-pool shotguns are more powerful.

If something is unbalanced it has to be proven. If something is unfun to play with or against it should simply be changed (not nerfed or buffed! Changed!). The end-goal is that it is fun to use but also fun to play against. I don't think the current Vanguard shield is OP, but it simply isn't fun to fight against so it has to be changed into something that is fun to fight against.

Vanu is historically the most nerfed faction, so to compensate they have had to learn teamwork; you can't really nerf Teamwork. We're like the damn Eldar in WH40k, not numerous like the Imperium or the Tau (TR and NC, respectively ), but the most skilled of the 3.

In all seriousness the escalation update was a teamwork buff, which buffed VS massively by default. An Example: last Saturday (Emerald) my outfit coordinated with 2 other outfits to pull 3 consecutive Bastions for 3 hours of alert dominance. That is what VS leadership can do, I do not see this kind of joint coordination in the other factions, more mob mentality for them.