Helios - The Excuse We Call a Server

YES! A battle, ONE battle. I'd like to think there should be a lot more action going on then that.

That's kind of lackluster, don't you think? If you have enough people when everyone's online for a battle then it doesn't bode well to what happens during off-peak hours.

That's not really what I meant. I meant a battle for my Outfit. CTD could be pushing one place, while CASH and Corporate Legion are pushing another. The population on our server is pretty equal for the most part, so each Outfit usually finds a good battle.

However, we don't have constant action like on Connery or Matherson. I'm hoping people come to Helios instead of leaving after the token is released.

I'll admit that it is. I'm just saying that as an Outfit lead, I try and organize OP times around peak population hours, so it isn't really a problem for me for now. It probably will as my outfit gets larger though.

Pushing =/= no fighting or a zerg standing a chance against their zerg. The zergs here just get ignored, camp a wg and take empty bases. How is that fun? This game emphasizes on large scale combat.. Well, I can get a 2x 3x the fight playing BF3.

There are times where we have to cap empty bases, but we usually do end up fighting enemy platoons closer to the TR and VS warpgates. I've had A LOT of good battles at MAO Tech, Crossroads, TI Alloys, and Peris Amp. Usually it actually ends up being our Platoon and a few randoms against 2-3 enemy platoons, but yeah, these battles don't usually last long.

But you're right, true battles are really though to find on off hours.

The same bases, all day! We've been fighting on the same 5% of the map since release.

If you knew me in the least you'd know that I don't care about stats at all. I play to have fun, don't play for any other reasons. Thanks for trying.. again.

Back to on topic.

Unless you play at odd times the bit about NC having less than TR is definitely not true. NC holds at least 30% of the population on Indar regularly. TR averages about 25%, sometimes less. The past few days I've seen an increase in NC population, when I logged in this morning they had the majority population, although when I checked continent populations VS held 40% on Indar while NC had something like 28%, then I checked the other two continents and both were something like 70 or 80% NC. You guys have more people than TR, sorry your warpgate location sucks(I have an NC myself and I definitely understand how ****** the NC's warpgate location on Indar is), but you guys could technically have a fighting chance if you would all get off the dead continents and come contribute to the real fighting. The other two continents are dead here, the more people we have fighting on Indar the better, as it will contribute to the servers (failing) health. Theres nothing we can do about the Vanu until the empire showdown thing ends and/or hopefully server merges happen.

The only reasons TR holds as much land as it does are as thus: We have the best warpgate location, sorry but its true, we start in the middle of the top of the map so it is easy for us to go east or west, on top of that fact, the entire northern half of the map is one large section of seabed, with natural mountainous walls leading into the NC(Canyons) and VS(Grass Plains) areas. And secondly, the way the game works right now, the huge zergs never meet, and so since it is easier for us to go east and west, we end up ghost capping half the map when the other factions are away. I always log into helios and see TR is either getting smacked by VS or owns half the map, but spawn anywhere on the front lines and you will usually find no one or a giant VS zerg capping everything with no opposition, eventually dissipating as the bases get more spread out and getting picked off by the occasional defender.

If TR and VS full forces were to ever actually meet and battle for real dominance on the map, I can say with alot of certainty that VS would win due to sheer numbers. I've been in so many battles on Helios where there were just way too many of them and not enough of us. We couldn't kill them all fast enough and they just walk through our lines with all their tanks/air units/infantry. I feel like people who say the TR is actually holding its own on Helios are living in a fantasy world, look at the natural advantages of our warpgate location, look at how every time we go up against a significant vanu force we lose, look at the lack of big fights in general and the TR population decreasing every day because of this.

Amazing. I agree and it really is true. I've logged off after logging on multiple times just from looking at the population or the map alone. This kind of thing makes it disheartening to a play on a game that was so much fun weeks ago. It still is a lot of fun but now it takes much more work to get those small battles going.

Believe me Liaf, just because we have a high population percentage on Amerish and Esamir, doesn't mean we have a lot of people there. Usually it's just one squad/platoon doing work. Most of us stay on Indar.

And as for zergs meeting, I do agree it's rare. My outfit only ran into an enemy zerg twice, VS both times. I'm thinking it was 2 platoons vs my platoon and some randoms both times.

Exactly, Helios was perfect at launch, no complaints and I loved the game so much. Now it takes so much just to do anything really. I still love the game I want to help as much as I can so I'm online as much as I care to be(until I've had enough of getting smacked around by the VS or doing nothing) just so my 1 character is counting towards the minimal population that we do have. But in the past few days I've been guilty of doing the same thing, log in, check population/map control, maybe rapid deploy or fly around in a mosquito looking for a battle, find nothing, log off.

The battle space 5 minutes go was like this:

VS zerg pushing Quartz Ridge to Dahaka.

NC zerg pushing Crimson Bluff.

VS/NC/TR fighting at Crown/Crossroads

That was basically the choices for combat.

We basically just took my Liberator and farmed the VS Zerg for a while before going down in a hail of glory.

It's kind of bummy to play when there's only 3 high-population areas, all consisting of a zerg of one or two platoons fighting maybe half a dozen people. No one fights anymore. The last Zerg vs Zerg I saw involved 2 Starcraft players.

You misunderstood me, what I was saying was that NC has a higher overall population than TR. As I said, when I logged on this morning NC actually had the majority population overall(36% to VS 32%, guess some of the VS hadn't logged in yet), which I found amazing, but when I checked continent populations 80% of the NC were on the dead continents, with VS still holding its population advantage on Indar as always.

LOL, as an SC player I find that hilarious, also ZvZ is usually too fast and boring, I play zerg mostly, can't wait for HotS!

So is this thread actually about low TR populations then? I seem to recall terrex chastising a previous post on this point.

Better point is that a larger overall population might help smooth out the effects of differences in faction numbers in any given battle.

I think the second sentence in the OP made it clear the thread is about TR's low population.

The population for the server can't even support three continental fights.

(Disclaimer: I don't play on Helios very often, just every once in awhile when I feel like playing my NC character)

Were the populations fine before the "Empire Showdown" event thing was announced? Or more specifically, when Seananners (NC) and Tobuscus (VS) announced they were playing on Helios (even though Total Biscuit is on Waterson)? Waterson usually has a lot of TR, which we often accredit to TB's outfit, but it's not a real issue when one empire has more than the others, since the others can team up. BUT, the situation it sounds like there is on Helios is a lot worse; when one empire has less than the others, that can be a bit issue, since no matter who they team up with, they'll likely get just as easily steamrolled by their "ally" in the end.

Of course, I could be wrong about all of this, but this is what I think I've observed.

Even if we had equal population the problem would still be there. The server has a low garbage population in general. Even at "peak" hours we only have 1 or 2 areas with platoons and an actual fight. Most of the fights then not all 3 empires can contribute to equally. 1 zerg killing everything else. Might as well remove the other two continents, I really have no idea why they are there. From all my playing time I've probably been on Amerish for 30 minutes.

Haha? I don't even know what to call this post or what the point of it is. Thanks I suppose?