The game is quickly becoming ever more difficult to enjoy. While the directors and devs are dreaming about water battles, NPCs, aliens and other rubbish, the actual gameplay is becoming terrible. Here's why: Three continents - Population: Indar: NC -77%, VS 6%, TR- 13% Esamir: NC-20%, VS- 22%, TR - 56% Amerish: NC-5%, VS-16%, TR-79% Those are real numbers folks. And it never adjusts itself to what it used to be, namely roughly 33% per empire PER continent, PER server. You know, the way it was during beta and the 5 days shortly thereafter. I just played 12 hours straight over the weekend. Not ONCE did I see even numbers, or close to. Now the only way you can play is follow the mindless mob of 80+% players on your faction and rotate continents. Example: NC's 80% cap Esamir, then move to Amerish, then Indar. The TR 80% mob on Amerish caps, then moves to Esamir once the NC leaves. And so on. Just an endless rotation of zergs. That's not acceptable, that's not enjoyable, that's not playable. There is no "epic battles on a massive scale" at all. There are no enemies. There is just one OP faction on a continent and everyone else is getting "farmed" by the mob. Eventually once they get tired of dying and being massacred, guess what - they LEAVE and join the mob of their faction on a continent, thus feeding the cycle. This has to stop. The entire premise of the game banks on a somewhat even balance between factions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody enjoys sitting around with nothing to shoot at surrounded by 100 friendly tanks, OR the opposite - getting "Farmed" by 100 enemy tanks when you can only spawn 5-6 by your group, only to see them destroyed 3 seconds after spawn. This is getting very silly very fast. I'd like to see a faction population limit of say, 39% per continent. That means if there are 39% TR on Amerish and you want to play, guess what - take a hike on Indar for a while. I understand they want the gamers to have freedom to play where they want but there have to be limits. Just my thoughts, feel free to disagree. I personally find this highly disappointing.
This is a major problem that I have also noticed however with your solution if your faction has a large world population advantage what happens when you exceed that limit on all continents? My Solution would be XP incentives. I'm not talking about the pointless 1 - 2% that they give for world population, I'm talking about a base of 200-300% anywhere up to 1000% if the population difference is big enough. Certs are difficult to get so if you could get a 1000% increase to your cert gain just by changing continent, would you? I know I would. Provided this balancing was tied into the overall world population, this solution should eventually lead to reasonably even populations on all continents and then the bonus would disappear so no major harm done to unlock progression but now you have even populations. (They really ought to put higher incentives on world populations too. Which team would you choose as a new player? The team that everyone says is OP or the team that has a whole 10% XP increase for having half as many people?) This is based of simple economic principles, it works with world markets so I don't see why it wouldn't work here.
Agreed in part. I personally could care less for a measly 10% xp boost. That does absolutely nothing when you're getting farmed by several hundred enemy players. 10% of 250 xp is 25 xp that is less than a drop in the bucket, it's absolutely a slap in the face, much like the galaxy xp from deployed kills. Now 200-500% xp boost is something that would be appropriate if you have 20% vs 50-55%. For 80+% I don't care if its 1 million % xp boost, I don't want to play with 5 people against a thousand, that's just lame, there's no fun in that. Some sort of hard faction population cap is definitely needed. Exactly how to implement it I'm not sure.
650. It's been there since well before release. If two factions move to different continents and one stays you can't exactly force them out.
There are allready caps per faction on each continent. I think its about 600 per faction? If your faction has less than 33% on the server, its just because your faction has less than this 600 people playing Its not like 1200/1800 players are from one faction. Even so the uneven population are a problem, its hard to solve it that way. You cant just kick people at random from a continent because their enemy leaves, only to maintain 33% continent populations
The problem is with rewards, and that rewards are greatest where there are the most people. It's one big positive feedback loop. Facility capturing and defending experience should be inversely proportional to the amount of allies around. If you capture or defend a facility with just a small party of people, you should be rewarded with a buttload more XP than if you just sat in the middle of a 200-man blob. Along with an indicator for ally activity (like the enemy activity option on the map), it would naturally spread everyone out.
this^ +1 As to previous comments, I understand there is a # established, say 650. But the problem is not the number it's the ratios. If there are 1000 people on the continent total, and your faction has their 600, that leaves 200 a piece for the remaining 2 factions. Yes, you're not at the 650 capacity but still grossly OPd by more than 3X the number of either of the other factions. A possible solution could be an ability to form temporary alliances with underrepresented factions. This would add more strategic depth to the game as well as make it a more dynamic, intricate experience. Thoughts?
