So today, at prime time, on the day of the Colossus patch, as a VS player on Cobalt, I have a choice

I can play here :







Or, I can play here :







Or, I could always go Indar, which is less under-popped, but still is under popped.









It would be nice if there was a way, I don't know, some technological breakthrough, some Japanese innovation that could help balance the population just a little? Just a tad? Just a bit?

Personally I love to play the under dog, I do, but not ALL THE ******* TIME.

lol

Are you absolutely certain that Indar is the off-pop continent, not the other two? Because I rarely see huge pop discrepancies on the Prime continent.

Otherwise... just play on Indar and quit complaining. You have three continents open, which is great for the game.

No, you mis-read ;

By this I meant that VS wasn't so much under-popped as the other two continents.

I was speaking of the VS faction, not the Indar continent.

Hadn't read this bit lol

How about you take your high horse, and ride it somewhere far far away with your irrelevant and insulting comments?

That's better

If they fixed the NSO faction and added, ESF, MBT options along with Faction specific topguns for a harasser and MBT. pop's would be more or less even no matter what cont you want to pick.

However, NSO faction is currently in a half finished state. Lots of bugs, lots of unfinished weapons, gear, vehicles.

I have a prestiged out TR account, and a couple of low level VS and NC characters. Currenlty mainly playing as NSO until I can at least prestige it 2-3 times. currently br rank 63. And I've been using constant double xp boosts since day 1 of that account.


As a general feel for how under played NSO faction is. I hardly play the game, I'm BR63 and I'm already ranked 150ish on the entire server for the NSO faction. Which... tells me nobody plays robot seriously atm. Maybe 100 people do.

They should make being underpopped fun. Who cares if you are outnumbered 10 to 1 if you can still make yourself useful? If you can still get out of the Spawnroom without getting killed before you've gone 40m by entire death squads and that you can still effectively slow down or even stop the attackers if you've got the know-how?

The thing is, you definitely can. As long as you're attacking an enemy base and they don't knock out your spawn, it's quite possible to hold them out 2 to 1. Yeah, they have 10 guys more here, but they have 10 less to fight somewhere else. If you're capping the enemy point or it's being contested, your enemy can't cap nearby bases connected to lattice, so they have to kick you off their base first. Their tunnel vision is your greatest ally.

That said, it only works with infantry vs infantry. Once the overpopped enemy starts pulling vehicles, it's all over. Nothing except AA spam can stop galaxy drops and ESF farmers and said air vehicles can circumvent any ground defense and choke points, and you need vehicles on your own to counter theirs (and there's more of them).


Might give construction actual purpose, and let me fortify lattice bases. Fighting in PMBs is very fun for me, but almost never lasts. I remember having a zerg roadblocked by a PMB with some retreating forces from the previous base, and the ensuing fight lasted 15 minutes, that's 15 minutes of said zerg not capping bases. Struggling to at least delay the enemy is viable, problem is it's usually impossible to pull off.

That extra 15 minutes is the result of bored ppl farming cortium for a way longer period of time. Defenses need to be quicker to deploy, lower profile. Fights that occur in two bases with an open field in between them should at least be dotted with some strategic points and defenses like trenches, foxholes, tank turret emplacements or tunnels that can't easily be shelled. High walls and towers have their place, but they lack the durability and are too big without auto-repair.

On a fun note, your pocket of units can last long enough to end up behind enemy lines. Then you can kill their Sunderer and end the fight. The problem is lasting long enough to deter other attackers and not attract unwanted attention. Again, only possible in small(er) fights.

Base turret defenses could also use an upgrade : Spear Phalanx can OHK infantry and also has access to a co-axial MG and anti-infantry turrets could stop being bad. Restoration of Tech Plant turrets, other bases also get their removed turrets back, actual defenses for bases. Auto-building tank obstacles in a few spots that can be considered well within the base's perimeter, to delay attackers a bit from flanking everywhere with vehicles.
The idea isn't to provide an impenetrable defense, but to create a fight just outside the base, and then it progressing into a fight for the point or the attackers being pushed into the field instead of rushing the points immediately. I think most everyone would enjoy their vehicles seeing more action in battering down defenses instead of pointing their guns at the spawn and farming. Galaxy and Valkyrie drops would become more valuable, as they can get close to the point immediately.

I remember when Phoenixes, Lancers and AV MANA turrets were common sights on open field battles, might take a look at them again. Can't judge them now as they've went through a ton of changes and I didn't use them much since 2018.


Fighting zergs as the underpopped side is very possible and even fun, but depends on how you define "zerg". 60%/40%? Doable, and even winnable at times. 80%/20% with the enemy having vehicle superiority? Might as well be lost already. Could be an ok farm, but aside from buying an extra 15 seconds for the team you might as well redeploy to a biofarm, you get more kills there.

For sure it can be fun.

The most fun for me is when you are fighting a bigger group of less experienced players, or, to put it another way, your allies are a smaller group of more experienced players.

I don't mean like being 2 or 3 guys against 2 squads of entirely new players who just quit WoW and are on their first day in PS2. That can be fun, cause it makes you feel like you and your allies are some kind of super heros fighting hoards of zombies or something, but it's not what I mean.


What I mean is when the skill level and experience is "reasonably" in your favour, because then, not only do you fight against impossible odds like a hero in the movies, but it's really rewarding, especially if you win.

What I mean is, for me at least (cause I've seen so many times in PS2 that for many people this isn't true) the opposite isn't true, that fighting a couple enemies with 2 or 3 times the number of allies is boring as hell.


That said, while being underpop, a lot of the time there's just nothing you can do, whether it's while looking at the all the bases on the continent, or in a particular fight. ANd when there really is no chance, nothing to be done, what's left? Log off? Change faction?

It's completely relevant. I'd say it's more a problem of not enough Vanu players logging on, than a problem with the game. Sure they can rework NSO so it take a much more active role with preserving empire balance, but the fact remains that there are enough people on the server to open three continents. That's fantastic because it means people have (temporarily) renewed their interest in the game, and are (temporarily) checking it out. Numbers are going to drop again but still, for now we've got absurdly high playercounts again!

No it isn't ******* relevant.

There's 2 points in that one ******* sentence of yorus.

1. just play on INdar and quit complaining

2. there are 3 continents open.



so

1. Indar is under popped too, but that is besides the point. The point is, why should I be forced to play on Indar, and on an underpopped faction at all?

It's fine and normal if it happens once in a while, but this is ALL THE TIME. There isn't a day that goes by where VS is significantly under pop.

As to quit complaining, quit being a patronising *****.


2. It deosn't matter if there are 3 continents open. It doesn't matter if there are ****ign MILLION continents open because that's not the point, that's IRRELEVANT, like I said.

The poitn is out of 3 continents. ALL OF THEM are underpopped for VS, 2 OF THEM in a way that should NEVER HAPPEN AT PRIME TIME.

I just want to point out something on the Indar pic


Notice how VS pop is 32%, NC is 33% and TR is 34%? Isn't it almost perfectly balanced? Getting under-popped by 1% globally is really nothing, I expected some really BS pop imbalance before prime-time which is what usually happens in Cobalt. Complaining about 1% pop difference is pointless.

The other two pics, there's a big fight between NC and TR on both. I'd say that ppl are motivated to swap to other continents or change factions because of big fights there, it's entirely possible VS players saw the other two continents devoid of any VS fight, didn't have fun or couldn't play on the most populated one and logged off. I guess that is the case because that's what I usually do on my Cobalt VS toon. No interesting fights, play 15-30 minutes and log off.

i logged off early, there wasn't much going on was there.
for a content patch day i expected the servers to be lit up, instead i don't even know if any maps made it to max pop.

omg I'm not complaining about the 1% difference on Indar.

Sometimes it feels like we speak the same language, but the words don't mean the same hahhahah.

(to be clear, 1% pop is nothing, if there's 150 players online all together, that's 15 players, and they could be racing around the continent in 2 manned Harrassers, it makes zero difference).

I'll try and be perfectly clear this time, maybe from a different angle.


VS is always under pop on Cobalt. (that's historical, it's always been that way, except for when Escalation came out).

What I'm pointing at is that out of 3 continents. All of them are underpop for VS, 2 of them out of 3 MAJORLY.

That MAJOR underpop shouldn't happen at prime time because of the queue system and/or whatever pop balance system they've got that I don't know about.

When there's 1 continent open, then fine, whatever, no choice right?

When there's 2 continents open, then ok, maybe one of them could have a big difference in pop for whatever reason.

But when there's 3????

No! If your faction overpops in one of 3 continents by such a huge margin, that continent should be LOCKED to your faction, no one should be able to join it.

(although I'm not entirely sure that's the solution either, I was just using that for the sake of argument).

At the end of the day, when do you get such big differences in pop? Late at night.

Why? Because there are no queues then.

This shouldn't happen at prime time.

There was more people, on Cobalt at least, a lot more, but you might not be able to tell so much if they are spread out on 3 continents.

I mean, usually, 2 continents at prime time is what I see regularly, and even then, one of those two could almost be empty, or almost full.

Just to be precise, no, it would be one and a half people.

lol

next day, 16h GMT, so not quite prime time yet, but NOT 4 AM EITHER

PRIME TIME ON INDAR

I'll say it again.

PRIME TIME ON INDAR

Should I say it again?

PRIME TIME ON INDAR

EDIT

Oh wait, I forgot, YES, THERE IS ANOTHER CONTINENT OPEN.

Yes, how many in fact? In total? At prime time?

2

What's the pop on the other continent? THE SECOND ONE? AT PRIME TIME?

So basically, I've got a choice between fighting 47% TR and 31% NC with 20% VS

or

I could always go to the other continent, and fight 42% NC, 31%TR with 25% VS.

Awesome, thanks devs, you really know how to balance a ******* game don't you.





**** off devs, you're not just incompetent, you

F U C K I N G SUCKK

So what do I do?

Tell me, seriously, what do I do?

Change faction?

Change server?

Log off?

Yeah, option 3, log off. You make me log off. You, ******* game developpers, in charge of this game, in charge of developping this game, of balancing it, of supporting it, you LITERALLY MAKE ME LOG OFF.

What the **** is wrong with you?

Player retention? Are you ***** joking?

The best thing you can do is to focus on smaller achievable objectives. If you are a part of a small/medium sized outfits start outflanking the zerg and take out their spawn-options. Even if you do not win the alert or whatever it should be a lot of fun.

It is how me and the outfit stayed engaged back in the day when VS dropped all the way down to 17% global pop on Miller. It was like, fine, we cannot possibly hold everything but we sure can make them bleed for every inch. In other words, we approached defences as "un-winnable" horde mode and attacks as sabotage/crippling alpha strikes. The more we did it, the better we became, and we started winning. Not all the time, of course, but bloody hell was it fun.

Rise up, look to your brothers and sisters, together you will find enlightenment. So tighten your spandex, embrace the dubstep! Technology equals might! March as one with the sacred war cry, WUBWUBWUB PEWPEWPEW!

In all seriousness, I know it can kind of suck but that's when we gotta adjust and meet the new challenge. Alert wins are meaningless, dime a dozen, and no one remembers them. What I will carry from this game forever is the outfits and the people I played with, and all the experiences that came with them. IMO it doesn't matter what the meta is as long as we create something from this sandbox called PS2. I realise this might sound cheesy but it is how I've dug myself up out of frustration and feelings of burnout.