Alert hoppping - empire switch timer needed

A limit to switching factions in an alert is needed. The factioneers ruin the game play for the rest of us because they're more interested in cert farming than having a good fight. I came here to kick *** and take names. I didn't come here to play Farming Simulator 2013.

Try 12-hours and see how they play out. 24-hours maybe needed.

The issue is that though is that the damage is done. People have exploited this enough to get a jump on others, and the strong faction just gets fed even more certs getting stronger.

SOE didn't think this through, and on top of it didn't react fast enough.

I think a 2-3hr timer within a server should be implemented. Its good for casual players who play multiple times during the day but want to play different empires on the same server and long enough to prevent last minute alert hoppers.

First of all, for this change to even be considered. This problem has to exist. I have yet to see any evidence supporting the claim that people switch characters enmasse for the sole purpose of winning alerts.

Let me see if I can be a bit more clear about this before someone decides they're 'smart' and posts screenshots (if they were smarter they'd put time stamps in there or even video, but for this, is nots needed). Showing screenshots of pops during alerts only shows a faction population. In fact it gives us a good look at an ACTIVE population on a server.

However that is not indicative to a true 'Fourth Faction'. I'll see if I can explain this further.

We know Alerts are where the big fights are. Now.. during off times, are there normally big fights? No.. not really. This is very similar to what we call Off Days in MMORPGs. The raiding content is done and the content is locked out for a period of time. Now.. why would someone during an Off Day login their main character? They can't do non-raiding content. Well they can, but they get no benefit for doing so. Now lets apply this to PS2. What purpose does a BR90+ have to do ghost caps and 12v12 or smaller fights? They don't, they play for the competition, the sort you find during alerts.

But said person wishes to play Planetside 2. So instead of playing their main. They play their alt instead. Because every character can pretty much unlock everything. It makes no sense to simply play another character of the same faction. What could they level up that they haven't already? I'm a BR54 and have pretty much everything filled out that I need. I just need to top off rank 5 and 6 of many things (you know the 1000 cert things). At 62,500 exp needed for each, not including the daily cert bonus... I'll have all that stuff topped off before BR100 easily.

Now lets fast forward to an alert. Oh.. now he can use his High BR character with his outfit. This akin to a raid night on a MMORPG. This is why he switches. Alerts provide a signal to an outfit that isn't active 100% of the time (not all Outfits are zergfits, my Outfit is a good example of one that isn't). They all login, get organized and get started once the alert kicks off. This means the population you see is the real actual active population.

Now what about those who don't have high BR characters and switch? We call that Altitist in MMORPGs. They simply wish to play everything. But normally these players have a main character. We call that simply a Main. These players switch to their Mains during alert to ensure that character is the one that benefits from it. Again showing that Alerts are indicative of the real active population.

Now.. I never said there was no population imbalance. There sure is. But its not apparently during non-alert play. Alerts are a great tool to show the active population of each faction. And I'm sure SOE is using that in their metrics to determine candidates for server merges. However they do NOT prove that fourth factioning is a problem.

I'm sure there are some people who do switch to win. But those players are not true competitive players. And I have no reason to believe there is enough of them to make a difference. I've never been in an outfit (or even a platoon or squad for that matter) with a member who says, "oop alert coming, need to log over to my XX character so I have a chance at winning." I have heard of outfit members logging in from VS or TR characters to play with the outfit during alerts though. I have seen this quite a bit. Their characters in the outfit are BR90-100.

I have never seen people leave an open PUG platoon en masse during an alert to play on the side that normally wins. So I have very little reason to believe Fourth Faction is a problem.

Now.. lets say this proposed change goes through. here's the consequences:

Those playing alts cannot do so 12 hours prior to when the outfit normally gets together. For some players that means no alt play. How is that fair?

Those playing alts until their friends get on cannot play their main when their friends get on. Because lets face it, there's no reason to play an alt of the same faction when you can unlock everything. Now if you want to suggest that we can only invest into one class at a time per character. Then by all means. But its a little late in the game to make a change like that.

So before this discussion can go further. We need more evidence to show that the consequences of allowing fourth faction right now. Is greater then the consequences of the proposed fix. I doubt it is, and I will remind you that showing population imbalances is only proof of a population imbalance, NOT fourth faction. I'll need to see a screenshot or video of peeps leaving multiple platoons En Masse during an alert. I doubt this has ever happened.

And of course.. even if it did, there's really no way to prove that they aren't on alts going back to their mains. You all have to some how prove that isn't happening. And then you have to prove such players are making a difference. And I'm going to be hard to persuade, especially since I'm in an outfit that can turn a tide in the NC's favor, against a VS or TR zerg. In otherwords, I don't believe zerging is an effective tactic against organization, In fact we've proven that to be true.

To put the last two paragraphs simply... I really doubt a couple of noobs looking for a win without much effort are turning the tide of an alert.

I'm noticing that people who suggest these things are extremely closed minded. Just because you like to stick with one faction for an entire day, doesn't mean that absolutely everyone does. The biggest problem with pop jumps is during alerts right? So make faction locks for alerts, and the 15-20 min just prior. After the alert is over, you can switch again. That is a compromise that benefits all parties.

Not this person specifically, but for those who think that you should only have one character on a server, that is also extremely closed minded. In a game that is so finicky in regards to ping and FPS, if you restrict people to only one character per server, you will see a massive drop in overall pop, except for the factions that the one character lucky enough to be on the person's 'local' server belongs to. Using servers on the other side of the country or world is simply not a possibility for a lot of people.

If the game pop increased to the point where SOE could re-open multiple servers in the same location, then server transfers might become a possible solution to the 4th faction problem.

Make it impossible to have characters on the same server in different factions. Problem solved. Well it will dissuade those who can't be bothered to make multiple accounts, but that comes with the added benefit of them needing to pay twice if they want subscription benefits.

Honestly locking characters will only hurt this game in the long run. I would recommend an experience penalty for being over populated. So for example if your faction population is over 35% you would then lose say 5% exp per 1% over that. That way if you have a 10% advantage in population you are getting 50% less exp and the factions with less people are getting more. Obviously the %'s are just an example and would need to be adjusted to keep things fair and not go overboard on them.

From the post right above yours:
"Not this person specifically, but for those who think that you should only have one character on a server, that is also extremely closed minded. In a game that is so finicky in regards to ping and FPS, if you restrict people to only one character per server, you will see a massive drop in overall pop, except for the factions that the one character lucky enough to be on the person's 'local' server belongs to. Using servers on the other side of the country or world is simply not a possibility for a lot of people.

If the game pop increased to the point where SOE could re-open multiple servers in the same location, then server transfers might become a possible solution to the 4th faction problem."

The problem with most of these posts I feel is that you're crushing the more casual player's fun of this game, and going overboard on a problem that this thread aims to fix.

As I said previously in my post here is setting up a timer to switch factions as soon as the incoming alert notification comes up should completely solve the alert problem, anything more is just hurting more than anything in my opinion. I've played Vanu and NC up to BR 40+ and am now playing TR and NC regularly until I get my TR character up to the same BR. I'm not doing this to win alerts (that's just silly since then I'll be making less certs on every character) but to enjoy every part of the game and to have a better understanding of where the balance of this game is.

Now most people don't actually do that for the same reason I do it. They have friends on another faction, people they enjoyed fighting against and as such would like to fight with them every now and again, that's what made me change mains from VS to NC. Some people like growing new characters from the base to remember how it was when they didn't have rank 5 nanoweave, an smg, and rank 6 jump jets. Others just don't much care about faction loyalty and play whatever side they feel like at the current time, and there is nothing wrong with any of those reasons imo.

Alerts on the other hand is a straight up faction competition, so I see nothing wrong with setting things up so you can't switch factions once you're notified of said alert.

Thanks to the server merges I have one of each faction on the same server. So when I log in to get my daily certs and an alert is going on (happens quite often by the way), I then can't change and get the other 2 characters because of the alert and must then wait up to 2 hours before I can then get them. Annoyances like that are like bad DRM, they only cause problems for the average players.

Same with swapping to VS on Mattherson..

Completely agree. One idea (on one of the thousand previous threads on this topic) was to allow a person to receive all of their daily certs for all characters with just one log in. Or allow faction switching as long as you don't leave the warp gate.

Slightly off topic: Why can't the people who make these threads ever read the threads already posted about the exact same topic?

I understand that, but to be fair this can be solved by simply getting on your main, or whatever character you want to play and get the Daily certs after. It's a bit of a nuisance and all, but I feel it's not a huge one that hinders play. You're free to feel another way of course, but that's just how I see it.

Edit: What silver fox said as I was writing this are two other ways to greatly fix your problem and have an alert timer. I support that.

It's only closed minded if there wasn't population switches for alerts. However there are, unless a faction getting a ~10% population boost during alerts on a regular basis is just me being bigoted and it's just a freak regular occurrence™. It ruins alerts making them futile measures to win leaving the underpopulated factions just scrambling to hold what they have.

6 isn't enough. Every other alert people could still hop.

12 is probably about right... but I think 1 week is more appropriate.

All you fourth factioners should be flat out ashamed of yourselves. Pick a faction.. man the f up... and stop bouncing back and forth for cheap little internet certs. If you want to play another faction - hit another server.

Pop switches do occur during alerts, and what you suggested was closed minded. Alerts are the problem, and there are other ways to solve the problem that don't induce other problems, like forcing people to use different servers. Please read what has been posted above you.

You people really don't pay attention to what goes on around you do you? In the current state, with limited servers, having only one character per server is not a option, since only about half the player base can use multiple servers (frame rates and the like make the game unplayable on long distance servers).

As a result of that, limiting people to one character cuts out 2/3 of the game for them... So you go to the effort to design a game and then only allow people to experience 1/3 of it? That doesn't make sense.

As far as 12 hour locks, and especially your one week proposal - now you're just telling people they can't play the game. That's sooo good for a game with a declining population isn't it?

Come on people! Use your brains!

No, SOE would just be telling them they cant abuse the game at others expense.

Suggestion: It is important to be able to switch between factions. Many players, including myself, do this only to study the enemies capabilities. However, there is an issue with alert-hopping. If you have an individual that has TR, NC, and VS on the same server such as Mattherson -- and they play them regularly -- why would they not switch to the faction that wins the alert?

There needs to be a sense of faction pride. The only way to instill that into devious players is to force a mechanic upon them. Who is more reluctant to stick it out and fight the battle?

A) The player who knows that if they are losing the alert --- they can swap factions to collect the reward?
B) The player who knows that they are unable to swap factions due to a lockout timer?

The obvious answer would be B).

The solution is simple. If I log into my account on Mattherson as TR -- and then attempt to log back out to the character screen, or close the client to the desktop, a two hour lockout period should be implemented at this time only giving me access to TR. The timer should not be implemented when a player "logs in" only when they "log out"

Note: If there is currently an alert that lasts longer then two hours in-game -- then the lockout timer should be increased. And of course we cannot forget the preparation time before an alert begins. That needs to be factored into the timer.

Derp.. 4th factioners are ruining the game balance and by extension ruining the game. There are enough servers for you, there are 10 or so.

How many people are out there like you that are 4th facitoning scum who have terribad latency issues (must be playing on dialup) and cant play on multiple servers because of this lame excuse? Yeah.. not that many. Now, how many people have left the game due to huge population imbalances and in-game faction balancing issues (which causes a lot of 4th factioning)? Yep.. you got it... a ton.

12 hour lock would not be that bad... Im in support of it, because I get it that there are kids out there with ADD that cant handle committing to a faction and just rolling with it at least until BR 100. Heck, IMO you shouldn't be able to unlock a new char on the same server until you hit 100 - its just dumb in any MMO or FPS like this that you can play multiple factions on the same server.

Did I say 1 week? I meant 1 month. Pick a side.. play it.