I know I'm going for another lap of a conversation that has already happened many times, but... More needs to be done to address overpopulation of any particular faction on a continent. Last night was frustrating to be on Indar. An alert started on Esamir before Indar, so Esamir became the main continent. The NC pop all went there, and when the TR started losing, they pop dumped Indar. This meant there wasn't an honest contest. Players need more incentive to play the under population faction and more needs to be done to cut off maximum population relative to the other factions. I would pitch at most a 40% cut off when a second continent is open, but honestly the number should maybe even be lower than that.
If NSOs were better designed maybe we wouldn't have this problem. Honestly step one is actually giving NSO more tools to have a positive effect on population balance.
This issue has pretty much always existed, but it's become significantly worse recently. Hard to pin point, but I'd say "more or less" since Escalation. I even reported in the bug report forums as a bug. Cause I consider it a bug. (this is only my personal opinion) --> In my experience, Rogue Games and DBG really don't know how to balance anything. Whether it's weapons, whether it's vehicles, whether it's new features and content such as Bastions, or whether it's population balance. Way I see it, the only way to get this improved, is to be supportive, "show them" (like you just did) what is going wrong, "explain" why it's an issue, "prove" what you're saying is true, "demonstrate" that it matters. Lastly, even though it's not our job, provide potential solutions. I don't usually do this, I usually call them out, tell them they suck. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, if (and it's a big if), they are trying, if they do have the intention of keeping and making this game good and better, then in what they fail to do (like balance), they have to be shown. They don't know any better, otherwise they'd solve the issue. Also, what most people think, and in my experience is mostly true, if you want to get a dev's attention, focus more on Twitter and Reddit. Maybe even live streams. I'm sure they, or some of them read these forums, but they never reply to anything here.
Legit 95% of the issue that's keeping me from playing NSO is its locked behind a monthly paywall. NSO's were supposed to be the answer to this very subject, but is so horribly botched in it's execution. Not only are you stuck with NS weapons, but in general they dont fix the issue and theres no motivation or lure to play one other than they kinda look cool. Theres a few things I'd do to fix them and by proxy, make pop balancing better. 1) Unrestrict the weapons they get/use. They should have access to the weapons used by the faction they're supporting. Any weapon unlocked by certs would grant access to all parallel weapons for other factions for use when they play them Any weapon unlocked by daybreak will be available with out certing, but only when playing for said faction. This makes them an option for the indecisive player letting them try all kinds of weapons and gear from all factions. 2) Make them free for all to use! If the point is to be a pop force equalizer, then you really need as many people playing them as possible. Not a lot to say here, but cant understate how important this is to their role. 3) Give them bonuses while playing. Extra certs/ISO4 ect up to, say, BR50 or so. Players have huge investments in their "mains" and tend to not like starting over. This lets them catch back up quickly should they desire. Makes them appealing to new players as well, giving them a quicker boost to catch up in certs/gear to more experienced players. Mildly compensates for playing with the lowest pop by giving them the ability more flexibly kit and gear out This also compensates for some downfalls in point 1 where one might have to reinvest in attachments and things that might not have a faction equivalent. 4) Let them stay in their faction on that map if they wish, but give the option to switch sides if an imbalance crops up again with an incentive to do so. This might cause them to lose out on the alert, so appropriate compensation should be given if they switch. The threshold of when they can switch would need tuning. I dont know enough about the statistics to even hazard a guess, but when it's open a number of slots should open up and allow the NSO's to reshuffle on a first come first served basis. This threshold would also likely need to consider other factors, like how well the faction is actually doing ect. I think a good way to implement this would be given an option after they die or redeploy. They get 30s-1m to decide if they want to switch, otherwise they lose the offer and it's given to some one else and they're put at the bottom of the list and have to wait for it to come around again. NSO's should know when this is happening and know where they sit in the queue. When the NSO logs into a map, they are bound to the faction they're given on that map unless they're allowed to switch or until it locks. This should be written to the account for the duration of the map so they cant just log out and back in again to switch. This is to prevent any cheeky exploits or manipulation of the system. In short, the general notion of NSO's should be to incentivise players to take an exchange of fighting for the team with a disadvantage in order to attempt to equalize the pop numbers. But to do that, they need a reason to. They eschew a lot of benefits from being in a single faction, namely not getting to chose what they have access to and being unable to operate in an outfit, though could connect with one to run with one of their squads they couldnt really be in one. As it stands, theres no reason what so ever to play with NSO, not to mention the solution to a real problem is locked behind a paywall. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired.
This is something people always cry about regardless of what is done. Nothing in this world is perfectly balanced, would not be a fun game if everything was a perfect stalemate all the time. The balance efforts they have taken are honestly great, NSOs, XP bonuses.. sometimes you just get rekt if you're bad son.
If NSOs were ever made F2P, I would strongly lobby for them being redesigned specifically to benefit solo players. As in people who just want to log in, run and gun for a while, and log out. People who might not be as interested in wider Outfit play. Meaning we would desperately need both an NS MBT, and an NS ESF. It'd also be prudent to consider adding in the PS1 ES buggies. I disagree with allowing NSOs unrestricted access to the tools of whatever faction they happen to be playing on; IMO it takes away from faction identity if what are basically mercenaries are allowed to use tools that should be restricted to loyal soldiers.
