A Dangerous Trend in Faction Populations

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Jolanar, Jan 11, 2014.

  1. Jolanar

    Hey everyone,

    I am not one to usually post on the forums but as the month has rolled on there are a few issues that have begun to surface.

    Populations on the Waterson server were largely balanced (minus the occasional drop in VS participation). After PU02, changes to the game have prompted a mass migration of players away from TR and VS (mostly TR) and into the NC faction. While this should not be a major problem, it has begun to destabilize the battles into a predominantly NC crash driven slaughterfest. Almost every alert is being won by the NC due to sheer numbers.

    This having been said, I understand that there is little that can be done to fix this now, but perhaps in the future SOE could augment some kind of reward program for sticking with a particular faction. (i.e. rewards for having only one faction character(s) on a server). Possibly even some kind of barrier that prevents someone from logging onto more than one faction per few hours up to a day would help to prevent this major faction swaps when game updates tip the scales in favor of one group or another.

    I am aware that balancing server populations is very difficult, but as a die hard TR fan I do not want to resort to faction swapping just when it seems convenient in order to have fun. Overwhelming force is nigh unbeatable.

    Thanks for reading.

    Profirix
  2. Grimno

    It's an issue I've been seeing as well.
    I stick with my TR guy because, thats the guy I put RL money on in the past.
    The only time I see TR win any alert now is at 5AM EST. Just had an alert, to captrue Biolabs.
    And I looked through each map to see how everything was going... TR were busy fighting NC and Vanu, and every biolab the NC owned was defended by over 48+ players except one which was 25-48 Versus 25-48. Then i saw movement going toward TR's biolab, and I starred in horror when they converged,
    TR had 48+ People there, and that was only 17% of the 100%! The rest was NC! That is well over 200 spare NC they have to launch an attack while every OTHER lab (4) was defended by another 48+ (cept that one). And this didn't include the numbers fighting battles elsewhere.
    Most times, the TR is down in Pop % by at least 11%...
    Kinda finding it hard to really enjoy the game when the only time I can probably get out of spawn and try to cap anything is past 4AM.
    I ask now, why would you not want to play NC now with their numbers? Just make a character, follow them around, don't even shoot anyone, just ride the EXP they give you. I ended up making an NC medic character that refuses to heal people and follow them just for the laughs when they get mad at me in proximity.
    Besides that, when it's you and like, 6 others and suddenly 70 people come to cap your zone, and your spawn is surrounded by tanks, reavers, anti-personnel turrets (I COUNTED NINE), proximity mines, snipers and C4... how can you have fun?! And the worst part is always when you're in that situation, the enemy will always start mass taunting, and launching fireworks.
  3. HawtSauss

    So people gotta play whatever faction they think is the best after every patch? Seriously? SMH

    People need to man up and stay with what they got.
    • Up x 2
  4. Greenmachine

    I see your point, however with the buff/nerf cycle the faction numbers will be ever changing. I suggest doing what we NC have had to do for a while: tough it out and wait until the fourth faction chooses you (although the 4th faction isn't always a good thing)
    • Up x 2
  5. EmmettLBrown

    Largely balanced? Did that include the largely dominant TR pop as well?
  6. Zazen

    Unfortunately, due to TR being left with OP toys for far too long waiting on PU01 for balancing, TR are utterly infested with "fair weather friends". I guarantee a lot of the TR that jump to NC when the going gets tough originally started as VS or NC many months ago, but switched to TR shortly thereafter for the "EASY button", which is now gone. The good news is , as soon as the alert is over, they return to TR, so general gameplay isn't affected.

    The reality is, a good chunk of TR general populace are people that lacked the intestinal fortitude to tough it out as VS and NC during the dark ages of TR's OP toys and over-pop. It will take a good while of the game being fairly balanced to un-do the damage done to TR from 1 year of gross imbalance.
    • Up x 3
  7. Jolanar

    It doesn't matter what faction the flavor of the month is: the real issue is the faction swapping.
    • Up x 1
  8. EmmettLBrown

    It seems to matter now that the TR aren't winning like they used to. I remember how they had to change the WDS rules just to give the smaller pop factions a fighting chance.
    • Up x 1
  9. doombro

    Who cares? We get more traitors and cert pinatas to shoot at.

    On a serious note, it's spring all over again. We'll find a way.
    • Up x 1
  10. Jolanar

    I'd like to see you win against a 50% NC pop on Esamir, 40% NC pop on Amerish, and 47% NC pop on Indar. I care about being able to actually fight and make a difference, not get slaughtered every single time I step outside of the warpgate.
  11. EmmettLBrown

    Ok, let me break it down from someone that's been where you are right now. This is called the dark ages for your faction. They will come in long cycles and you'll never stay on top forever.

    What do you do during those times? You lose. A lot. Probably 99% of your alerts will be soul crushing defeats that fall apart during the last 10 minutes. So get winning Alerts out of your head. Sometimes you'll spend hours playing a class that you've not bothered to play before because the situation just demands at least one of those in a fight. This is the time to learn every damn weapon you have on you. You fight dirty. You learn your enemy's limits and your own. You don't learn to play. You learn to play better than you have before because it's either that or you admit that you can't get better than you are right now.

    Time to blow a hole in your own skill ceiling, and jetpack up out of it. Trust me. When the TR get on top again, you're going to kick *** as easy as breathing air.
    • Up x 5
  12. NC_agent00kevin

    quote="Jolanar, post: 2401544, member: 70627"]I'd like to see you win against a 50% NC pop on Esamir, 40% NC pop on Amerish, and 47% NC pop on Indar. I care about being able to actually fight and make a difference, not get slaughtered every single time I step outside of the warpgate.[/quote]


    Welcome to what the NC and VS experienced for several months, the VS for much longer than the NC. Those poor guys have been outnumbered most of the time since the merge, barring a short period mid 2013 where they enjoyed an influx of new and inexperienced players. Players who quickly re-rolled TR when they saw the massive population advantage and huge arsenal of OP gear. Or did we so quickly forget about 2013 now that the new year is upon us? Not so enjoyable when the shoe is on the other hand now is it? The turns have tabled, and you've matched your meet.


    In General:

    It [population imbalance] happens. The server was fairly well balanced for a while, then the Harassers and such came about. TR population swelled, and the Reds enjoyed a dominating presence on the server for several months. When the imbalanced toys were taken away and fixed, that feeling of power and dominance went away because not only did they have to work for their wins now, but they were softened by the lack of skill needed before.

    As for VS, ZOE users [abusers] left too. Now people of both factions feel like the NC is OP because you cant just walk all over us as you did for 13 months. We are competitive and have grown used to being slightly handicapped.

    I may be missing something here, but we barely got any buffs. Our Titan AP gun got a ever so slight velocity increase, which changes little. A couple of our most hated guns got 4 more rounds per mag - big whoopty doodle. Most of the players that hated those guns still dont like them, and the ones who liked them still dont get much more out of them. Personally, my KDR and battlefield effectiveness have not increased or decreased in the slightest post PU02. Nothing has changed enough to suddenly make me a 'better' player. I find nothing different on my TR and VS alts either, but possibly because Ive played NC mainly from the get go and tend to play both other factions as I would NC. (lots of ADS, bringing the right weapon to the right fight, thoughtful positioning and awareness of what my current loadout is best suited for)

    What happened was the same sort of blanket nerf that shotguns got a few months ago - which hit the NC fairly hard. Was the forums full of TR and VS OP threads due to that single update? No. (its always full of them!)

    Give it some time and I think most 4th factioners will wind up going back from whence they came or re-rolling yet again. They will discover that they are faring no better with NC toys as they did with TR or VS toys - it is a temporary illusion, in part due to the superior numbers.
    • Up x 1
  13. Lamat

    I played through the hard times as Waterson NC, we had to have meetings outside of game just to get it together and compete. I'm not going to feel bad about our success now. But you can take your weak "loyalty until nerfed" treacherous players back, we don't want them.
    • Up x 2
  14. Ganelon

    Ehh... the WDS rule change was blatant favouritism towards VS, rather than a "fighting chance".
  15. Boomotang

    The problem isn't the population. Someone will always have the highest population. It's the thinking of double teaming someone because it's easier to win a fight that way. NC and VS are used to fighting primarily against the biggest pop faction (which hasn't been TR for quite a while on Waterson) and they don't like letting go of the "woe is us" mindset. They continue it even when TR is the lowest pop on the server.
  16. geekrider

    But there's something that I've noticed during one of those days where I spent 10 hours playing Planetside. 8AM-12PM TR has max pop. 12PM-4PM VS has max pop. 4PM to 8PM NC has max pop. And then the cycle repeats for the next 12 hours.
    Disclaimer: All times are in IST (Indian Standard Time)
  17. lyravega


    Are you sure that people are migrating? Or, is it old players returning / a bigger portion of new players choosing NC? There are mountains of difference between the two.
  18. RyanGUK

    I'd love to see it so that you can only have one player per server and you have to play that faction on the server. Bit too limited though in taking that and implementing it. On a side note for 4th factions and alerts, you could make the alert timer record whether you stay the same faction throughout the whole alert. If not, no XP for being a "traitor".
  19. Lamat

    I'd prefer if they had a timer for switching factions on the same server.

    Even better, force move lower BR characters to other servers and don't allow more than one faction characters per server.
  20. eldarfalcongravtank

    to be honest, waterson has always been like that in terms of population imbalance. the last months it was TR-dominated. as my main is a VS, i am pretty much used to being underpopulated and dominated by higher number of opponents by now. moreover, populations are rather even whenever i'm playing during pre-primetime (6 to 8 p.m. est/east coast time)