And the OP Faction is *drum roll* ....

Sometimes I think I am playing BF 2143 Online.

Just the way the gameplay is all set up.

I dearly do hope that one faction has such a theoretical advantage that it equates to an actual advantage in game.....with a bit of luck, all the ill disciplined FOTM month players will flood to it as a bonus.

I am sick to the hind teeth of reading about so called " balancing threads " or that one weapon or faction is overpowered in some aspect...... it is effectively killing this game and consuming a huge amount of resources trying to chase an unattainable goal.

If one side is more powerful, roll a toon to fight against them and feel smug everytime you kill one of them.

The way things are going we will end up with nothing but common pool weapons and vehicles that are sprayed red, yellow or purple for looks.

So where is the shotgun kph vs all other guns? pumps kph vs all other shottys? These I would like to see.

According to this, NC MAXs pull 1k more score an hour than the other factions, 1k less as medic, TR's LAs, Engis and Heavies pull 1K more, and Vanu's only advantage seems to be it's Scythe.

The sixth faction?

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Now let's see a statistical comparison of only the good players.

Oh wait, qualities need to be represented by quantities in order to do that!

The wise person gives up at this point. /thread

I didn't create the graph, it's from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AmUavphHXmIxdFhHUzJfN1VYalRnWS0xMnBUdTJpM1E&gid=3, I should have provided link in my post. Unfortunately there is no server specific data there, the graph was just a reply to general statement that TR was overpopulated in the past. Obviously there has been balance issues in various servers but in general TR hasn't been overpopulated.

It often happens when non-statiticians are presented with numbers, they are looking for the numbers to confirm their existing bias/opinion about what it should be. Clearly there is a lot of that going on here already.

Another equally frequent occurrence is that - because of this bias - people completely miss what the numbers DO tell.

Overshadowing the modest differences between the factions is the fact that MAX pilots are OVER-REWARDED for their efforts compared to any other infantry class AND compared to ESF or MBT vehicle use.

Instead of picking at the lint in your belly buttons, you should all wake up to the fact that this very uneven distribution of EXP across MAX vs. EVERYTHING ELSE should be addressed FIRST, before any minute tweaking between the factions.

Yes. I know where the graph statistics come from. The problem is, it is a very broad brush stroke which does not take into account the cultural preferences of players on a local level.

There are more players in the US than in any other single country. The NC is going to appeal to US players rather more, by virtue of having personal freedom and free enterprise at the core of the faction's aesthetic. The TR have vertical collectivism at the core of their aesthetic.

The EU is rather different and the populations are far more balanced (at least between TR and NC).

Miller and Ceres have a TR majority.
Woodman and Cobalt have an NC majority.

The VS are universally unpopular because transhumanism makes people feel rather eneasy, and very few people want to fight while wearing purple tights.

The graph is not in any way indicative of faction balance or 4th faction preference. It bugs me that people throw world-wide faction population around as a proof of imabalance. The only imbalance is in the cultural mindset of the players, and as such varies from country to country.

To top it off, many people will join the side that has the largest population, simply because it has the largest population. There is little incentive to fight for the underdog in this game. Nerfing the hell out of a faction because they are dominant in one part of the world, is certain to eventually put players from that faction but not from that part of the world, at a massive in-game disadvantage.

Absolutely! How about half of you NC guys defect to the VS or TR?

These charts do not differentiate between max AI and AA weapons. Rarely do I see a TR or VS max that isn't AA. As far as the max being OP in general, that's ridiculous, of course they have a higher score per hour - they're pulled in situations when they are going to make alot of points. Most people don't play a max as their main class. Solo players only play max in large battles - you can't pull a vehicle as a max, so unless you find a friendly sundy willing to transport you, you're going to be late for the next fight as you gallomph between territories.

As someone said, this chart also doesn't take into account the lower-population XP bonus. Also, it does make sense for larger populations to have a lower overall XP score - you have more people fighting to get fewer kills. It would be better to show K/D in this instance.

I was using the graph only to respond general statement "TR has been overpopulated in the past". By no means I'm suggesting that any of the factions should be nerfed, in fact in my opinion the weapons/vehicles are quite balanced now. I have even stated that in my previous posts regarding the population balance:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...now-a-two-faction-server.113382/#post-1530044
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...players-on-nc-side.113443/page-3#post-1529585

As you stated there is no incentive to join low pop faction, in fact joining high pop faction is rewarded now thanks to alerts system. All I'm asking is that SOE provides incentive for players to join underpopulated faction instead of flooding to largest faction.

TR on Millere have a high rate experience at an o'clock because of the NC and VS union. TR should kill two enemies, instead of one as to allies of NC and VS.

Excellent!

Generally speaking though, whenever I see that graph, it's followed by someone claiming something should be nerfed. In the case of your post, my assumption was wrong, and you were not implying that something was broken in terms of the game.

I'm just vaguely annoyed that people use faction population as proof that something is unbalanced.

Are only the "good players" relevant?

Okay so TR have the highest average score/hour in every category except MAX and ESF.
...that's what the chart says.

That's exactly the problem of these forums. No matter how you try to discuss about population imbalance the thread turns to nerf requests sooner or later.

What I took from that:

NC vehicles suck as usual, Vanguard especially. Reaver quite not as badly.

TR apparently has the best infantry weapons to get more certs than the other two factions looking at the score/hr, every single class gets more XP than the other two sides except MAX ofcourse.

Judging by that I would buff VS max and vanguard

NC is still the hard-mode faction considering overall success. I cant understand the NC stack going on atm

Funny how everyone always says the Prowler is the most OP vehicle, but has the highest death average per hour, and lowest performance against other MBTs.

Oh well, people only see what they want to see.

I don't think anyone is complaining about newbies using Phenoix and missing.. or using Max and running out and getting themselves killed instantly.. bad players due to the very fact that they are bad don't contribute or even register as a threat to most veterans. Most new PS2 players don't learn the ropes until I would say BR 15 or higher. Until then they are just fodder and follow the zerg for the most part. Because NC have the highest population probably also have higher percentage of new players you can't just ignore that fact and dump their stats together with the vet players. It skews it and makes the NC look weaker than they really are. Personally I don't think its the new players leading the zerg, pulling Phenoix, creating squads and airdroping in with Max, flying ESF squadrons etc..