4th Faction Strikes Again!

When I logged on, TR had 34% of the total server population, while VS and NC had 33%. I figured I was going to see some decent fighting. As soon as I spawned in, an alert started for Indar, the continent I happened to be on. I start defending a biolab. We (VS) were outnumbered but holding our own against the NC. The fight was heated, then suddenly NC had everything capped and I hardly seen any vanu around. We had dropped to 26% of biolab pop. So after we lose the lab, I glance at the map, and I noticed suddenly VS presence had dropped dramatically on the continent. Then I log to the character select to check server pop. VS was now 29% while TR jumped to 37%. NC had the remaining 34%. As it would happen, TR had the most territory when the alert began.

There should be some kind of character lock on the account/server whenever an alert begins, and remain til it ends so that all these sorry arsed 4th factioners who only want easy mode and never a challenge would have to stick to their characters or quit. Maybe even a log by IP if that can be managed so they couldn't spread their same server factions to other accounts and log them.

Changes in population aren't caused by people changing faction. They are caused by people logging off en masse on one faction. It has been confirmed by the developers that the total number of people who change faction on a daily basis are 1% of the population.

If you're wondering why the developers haven't fixed the fourth faction problem, it's because there isn't one.

Either way you slice it, it's down to poor morale. Rats abandon a sinking ship, and players won't stay around for the loss.

And it just so happened that the faction who started with the most territory when the alert started was the pop that climbed at the same time the one with the least dropped. You believe what you wish. I agree with your "ignorance strikes again" comment though. It seems to have struck in your reply

If you're winning, you'll stay to the end of the alert.
If you're losing, you have no real incentive to stay on and if you get frustrated you log off.

It is really this simple but you're allowed to think whatever makes you happy.

It's not the other population climbing, it's the others dropping. Barely a handful are actually switching.

Or they just tell us that so we think there isn't a problem therefore they don't have to spend time fixing anything /s

Are you being serious? Can't tell.

Okay. Math lesson time. When two out of three values drop, the third's representation as a percentage, is going to rise.

You got 33 TR, 33 VS, and 33 NC. 33%TR, 33% VS, 33% NC. Then, all 33 VS stay, while 11 NC give up, and 22 TR give up. You've now got 50% VS, 33% NC, and 17% TR. Yet no one joined the winning team, and the second place team lost people, while their percentage stayed the same. See how that works?

http://ps2alerts.com/Alert/7393

Have a look at this or practically any other alert on that site, look at the populations on the graph.
You notice that as the Alert comes to the last half-hour or so the losing factions populations, NC and VS, begin to drop.
You see on your server browser in-game, "TR percentage pop increasing, 4th faction scum!!!". In reality their pop has also suffered a net DROP, their population decline is just slower because they are wining.

Percentages are deceptive.

I'm sure you can find the exact alert you are talking about and see the reality for yourself.

To the OP, this. I highly doubt anyone would decide to create a character or change a character just because they're losing. No one's that afraid of losing to deal with administering certs for multiple characters just for the purpose of having a backup just in case there's an even fight. Jumping ship is a much more likely scenario. Going to another character is just too much work, IMO.

Every minute players are logging on, and others are logging off. You can't see the total server population, only the relative population, however some websites are able to use the PS2 API to put together a graphical representation of players logged in. A popular website, http://ps2alerts.com combines that with a graph of objective control of the alert. This means you can correlate population with the progress of an alert.

To illustrate what Alarox said, lets use an example alert in progress at the moment I post this, which is similar to what you describe http://ps2alerts.com/Alert/7396

The times on ps2alerts are in GMT, this is on Mattherson (Eastern US) so we will subtract 5 hours from the times, giving an alert starting at 1750, early prime time when lots more players are logging on than logging off. As you can see, for the first 3/4 of an hour, pops of all factions are rising roughly equally, however at that point the VS starts losing ground, mostly to the NC. This is followed by a huge drop in VS players. However, you will notice that the roughly straight upward trend in TR and NC players does not get a similar size bump.

If you look at similar alerts, you will see something a lot like this (the ps2alerts database is quite substantial now). In the alert that I chose as an example, I would guess what happened is that the NC and TR both started attacking the VS at the same time (possibly due to the TR obliterating an NC attack, so they go elsewhere), the VS started losing bases to overpopulation at all fronts, and a lot of VS decided they had something they would rather be doing than lose an alert, however, that's just a guess.

Here, go look for a late-night alert where the populations start even, then crash:

http://borderlinetactical.net/rsnc/world-population/?world_id=17

You will see that it very much boils down to:

• Winning or competitive factions - their players stay logged in, or at least logout at a slower rate then new players are joining.
• Losing factions - their players start logging out faster the new players log in.
• A tiny fraction (that 1%) are switching from the losing to the winning side mid-way through the alert.

And a few more graphs that show the effect:

http://ps2alerts.com/Alert/7347
http://ps2alerts.com/Alert/7300

You know you can look up the world population on the map right?

God damn those fourth factioners.
Time to join the fifth faction.

No

Yeah I'm totally sure they're not just making up figures to placate the player base.

Pst! We can get real numbers from the actual servers :X

I guess I'm probably that 1%. When I switch factions it's always for one reason: resources. I like tanks, and I'm going to stay in one. If the empire I'm currently playing can't keep enough territory to sustain a decent mechanized income, and I'll switch to which ever empire can. There is no difference between my TR lightning and my NC lightning and like any good merc, I work for the highest pay.

Didn't read any of the rest of the posts.

OP suffered from what I call a "BIOLAB Trance". He didn't realize a whole hour had gone by and he lost the alert defending something that really didn't matter.

--Been there man, no one to blame but yourself.