[Suggestion] The Waterson Population Conundrum

Yes, we've all seen it. The population imbalance is something that has affected the Waterson server since the november 20th, mostly because this is becoming a norm quite throughout the day. It becomes frustrating for players like me and my outfit, which are located in a -3 GMT timezone, here on Brazil, and we are constantly fighting the HUGE zerg everywhere. This was taken today, at 10:06 A.M. in out timezone and I've got some free time in the mornings for now.

Even not seeing one single TR platoon on the map, you'd see EVEN less NC and VS players playing, making any attack of defense a futility. It's quite discouraging to play in such conditions, even more then 5 minutes. I understand that percentages are just an estimate of how many players are only, but still, would it be so hard to actually put a hard cap on such a server? TotalBiscuit and AngryJoe brought a HUGE TR mass to the server, and when they finally learn to organize, there won't be stopping to them, unless NC has an equivalent number, which is hardly attained, even during peak hours.

Server merge would be an idea, but most likely wouldn't resolve server disparities outside the prime time. So I suggest a hard cap: No faction can have more the 40% of total population on server at all times. Its something that is needed, in order to preserve a little balance. There's no way to play a game with such a large advantage towards one faction without thinking you are being shafted.

As seen in a lot of servers, it's actually stupid to think both NC and VS will work together to repel the TR, specially in such maps where the advantage of terrain favours either TR or VS, having only a little more balance in Amerish, and even so, not totally balanced, map-wise. Esamir TR and VS gang up on NC for it is the closest warpgate to both and Indar where NC has the worst location, proven time and time again during Beta, when VS had the position and couldn't leave the SE part of Indar as well.

This would be easier to deal with once the capturable continents were presented, but I doubt that would be something we would get soon, and this kind of stuff is what might kill such servers, since more and more people keep increasing the TR ranks, mostly because a lot of players aren't "faction pridend" yet, and as soon as they see something similar to what they play (TR emulates quite well modern shooters philosophy) they tend to stay on it, sometimes without trying other factions, and those who don't even try other factions for fear of being ROFLstomped.

Another thing is to disable new TR character creation on such high TR population. This would force players to go VS or NC, or choose another server, increasing little by little NC and VS ranks without adding MORE bodies to TR. This situation might be happening in other servers with other factions and the same rules should apply. Its an exercise in futility to play in a server that has a huge population difference, and this is the first time I'm complainig this on forums, mostly because nowadays, throughout the day, its constant to see TR with high pop in at least two continents, sometimes 3.

This isn't a ZERG problem, this is a population balance problem, which needs to be quickly addressed, alas more people decide to leave Waterson, causing EVEN more population imbalance.

Consider this a "official" Waterson population problem. We could have one topic the whole time between the higher threads in order to shed some more light in this problem, and try to resolve it, not just for waterson, but other servers with similar problems.

Thank you.

I know how you feel. Helios usually has a hilariously high VS population. Probably has to do with the whole Faction Masco- I mean "Leader" thing. It'll die down once all the youtube kiddies stop flooding in.

You're playing on a US east coast server, so you should expect to have to deal with US east coast times. You're complaining about a population imbalance at 7 AM on a Monday morning. A lot of people are either getting ready for work or still sleeping. Servers won't ever be perfectly balanced and it's especially silly to expect developers to devote time in rectifying an imbalance for one of the least "prime time" hours imaginable; early in the morning on the first work day of the week.

Your 40% cap in population suggestion is silly. I understand not being able to get onto a map that's full. The map was designed for 2,000 people, so that's what it's capped at. But I shouldn't be locked from playing a the game because another faction doesn't have it's crap together; especially when maps are no where near at capacity.

TL/DR: You're talking about 7 am on a Monday. There's no need to force people to play other factions in decidedly non-prime time.

Yes, of Waterson-Mattherson-Jaeger, Waterson has the worst continent imbalance, there is a good server population but the imbalance makes it hard to find anything that is not base capping vs no defense, or an overwhelming TR zerg coming back from fighting the NC on Esamir. Even during prime est hours.

I stopped playing my VS (which is my primary) and started playing on other servers more often, I pop into Waterson and play when its a little more balanced or a decent fight pops up. It seems like both the NC and VS populations have gone down a little and are more often in the high 20's than the 30's they were at prior to the TR going to 40+. Leading me to believe other NC and VS are playing elsewhere more often.

What I do not understand is how the TR leave Indar defenseless to be capped by the VS while they go fight in Esamir with a mass horde, then come back and recap and rinse and repeat, but unfortunately the game mechanics actually PROMOTE this behavior.

Regarding the capacity, it is of little use to have 2000 population if said population cannot be rendered at distance correctly or in larger battles at 15-20 meters, popping in and out.

That camo so OP

No blue at all!

So stop whining

Brazilian player, playing on an EAST COAST USA SERVER, complaining about population imbalance in the early morning, YET ADMITS that population is more evenly balanced during primetime.

/Endthread

NC FAILS YET AGAIN

Go back to your entire faction hiding in a single Bio Lab with Maxes just waiting and being useless.

Its not that much more evenly balanced at any time. TR seems to be over 40% at all times, don't think I've ever sen it less than that, and frequently 45%+.

Meh, I was just playing on Waterson as a TR, and we had 50+ percent of the pop again, but I'm pretty sure that just indicates that no one is around at all. It's more a matter of a dead server during the off hours than a severe imbalance, as I'm often alone at night capping and defending. All it takes to sweep Esamir at 5am PDT is for a half dozen NC to get organized.

I like using Mobile Warfare on Waterson ((it is even funner when you have a small group of people to do it with, who are not concerned about trying to join a zerg)).

Pick a hex that you want to keep at all costs, and constantly take hex's around it to draw the attention of whatever faction, but always ALWAYS own the one hex that you decide is going to be your hex, otherwise you lost the war.. For me, playing NC on Waterson, I have chosen a hex close to the warpgate, and every time im on, I make sure that that hex is owned by the NC the best I can.. Freedom fighters man, we are going to be outnumbered by the mindless spineless mass' of the TR dictatorship..

Which is why I said later on that even on prime time population still is mostly going towards TR anyway. The problem isn't 7 AM in the morning, which is an example, and the critique is valid in that point. The problem is around 18 PM -3 GMT, where TR STILL has the massive numbers advantage. While the number start to increase in NC and VS, TR diminishes, but not because less people are playing TR, but because more NC and VS are entering, diminishing the percentage disparity, but still that doesn't mean NC and VS would have an equal footing against TR if they were minimally organized compared to NC and VS.

During 2/3 of the server up time, there's still a TR advantage by a huge margin, while the 1/3 of the time, mostly during prime time, TR has only the advantage still. While having a small margin doesn't turn the empire the all mighty ROFLStomping force, the other 2/3 of the day this isn't quite the case.

The idea of the 40% advantage was not to allow MORE people to join the already gigantic population of TRs on Waterson, since they already are able to get a huge amount of people almost all the times of the day. It only encourages more people to either play TR or to play only on US east peaktimes, which will be detrimental also for the TR population, which will find harder and harder to get into fights unless on prime times, which is also very lame for them as well.

Keep your hex near your warpgate, just leave my Mani Biolab alone, you dirty traitorous toad.

As usual, TR n00b failing to understand a simple basic problem with his own server. Which will, in the end, if not addressed, bite him in the *** for there will lack players to shoot, mostly because of the imbalance he himself brought up. When EVENLY, we mean, 40/31/29. Considering that those 40% = 2000 players in prime times, NC (or VS) will have 1520 and VS (or NC) will have 1480 players. So you actually get much more then half a continent worth in players extra compared to NC (480) and VS (520). Those extra players ADD up to the imbalances inside the continents itself, showing those "wonderful" 70% TR on some continents that are abandoned.

Strenght IS in numbers. You can split those 3~4 platoons into 2 continents and ROFLstomp things quite easily, specially if those extra players KNOW what they are doing. Even yesteday, at 20 PM here (17 PM there), TR still had the advantage of having more people in two continents then VS and NC.

To close this, although I believe you are the kind of guy that says "SPEAK ENGLISH, THIS AN MURICA SERVER!!!!", I like the East Coast server. VERY low lag, very playable, and full of idiots like yourself to make fun of. And BTW, keep throwing yourself against my grinders, they need the tears to keep shooting. ^_^

I find the over population of TR on Waterson annoying, to say the least. We'll get a good fight going somewhere and it will be back and forth for a good while and then the zerg shows up and steamrolls the fun people we were fighting. So we pack up and go somewhere else and have good fights for awhile and then the zerg shows up again. You can't escape them, they are like that annoying kid that invites himself to all the fun parties and ruins it for everyone.

No matter where you go, they show up and ruin the fun. Makes me sad inside...

******* youtubers seriously need to use thier power a little less. TB and angry joe seriously killed waterson

I'm NC on Waterson also DK & while its nice to have a target rich environment it can be pretty disheartening at times. I have a 6.1 KDR and it doesn't matter. I kill 6, have 1 bar of health left & look over the horizon & there is 12 more incoming.

18.00 -3 GMT is still the workday here in the US, so you're still talking about off-peak hours. Insofar as TotalBiscuit has skewed population in terms of TR on Waterson (something I hear constantly about Waterson), the skewing has been during off-peak hours; the populations get closer in balance during prime US East gaming hours. It's silly to demand that developers spend attention trying to manufacture balance during a time when the majority of players aren't playing.

Well, there's never going to be perfect population balance in any server. You can find a plethora of other posts complaining about NC or VS dominating particular servers in terms of numbers. Besides, while overall population can be imporant, it's not the determining factor. VS usually has less population than TR but they've held Indar for what seems to be a week straight. Continent population numbers, not server population numbers are the most important. And you'll often find that NC has an advantage on a particular continent even if they have 10% less population as a whole.

I'm confused. Are you saying that a hard cap of 40% total population means that people can't create more players, or can't join the server? Either way, it's a silly idea. I don't feel like I should have to limit my game because people don't want to play other factions. I decided to play TR on Waterson before the game even went live; I shouldn't be locked out because of server population numbers which take a backseat to continent population numbers anyway.


You're never going to see 33%-33%-33% all the time. It just won't happen. Stop trying to hurt TR players to work your way to an impossible goal.

The only thing I can focus on in the OPs pic is:
+17% Experience

Schweeeeet!

If I were you I would farm as much zerg as possible before the server tranfers become available.

Are you trying to ruin it for us with that elitism spiel?

We WANT more from all over the world. Brazil? Good deal. Get all you can in there, get the Aussies. Get the Euros to pad the mid day shift. Keep the EST players, lure some PST players. We want you all, in all of the factions. So the server is always booming, always warring, always packed.

Waterson, where all of the world is welcome.

Precisely. There is no fun in a dead server. And for SOE it isn't a very atractive model as well, since more players playing = more revenue. There are our rivarlries between faction outfits and other factions outfits, most which a lot have already established. The talks of transfering are growing and once they allow this to happen, the VS and NC faction will be dented by some margin, cause players are fed up fighting the unending wave of TRs. As will other server with NC/VS high pops grow, as players will also transfer to those high pop, increasing even more the disparity.

Only someone as blind as Sinist would want people that aren't from the East servers to leave. You'd see a lot of servers going from high to medium in the East Servers rather quickly.

By your own definition, you believe 90% of things USA uses to its consumer base shouldn't exist as well, right? I mean, sweatshops all around the world feeding some intolerants like things like youself, thinking so high and mighty above your nation.

By your standards, 90% of your computer parts should be destroyed thanks to that little "Made in China" Label ^_^