Miller unplayable during alerts

Its great fun playing global alerts like Tech plants. Go to the least populated continent(usually Esamir for the Tech alerts) and check how the attack/defending force for VS looks in any given "lane".

A day ago the VS attacking force trying to get close to the NC tech plant on Esamir was Me(Sundy) and 2 random Lightnings. We bravely "fought" through 3 NC bases slightly outnumbering the defending NC(only 2-3 NC), usually during the base attack there seemed to be some other random VS infantry dudes joining in so we could be some 3 infantry and the lightnings outside so in total we were probably almost twice as many as them, though that doesnt matter as much when its still less than 5 infantry in a base.

When we were taking the last base to connect to the Tech plant we sort of realised that, well.. what would we do now?
The Tech plant had 24-48 enemies in it and 81% of them were the attacking TR and they were already capping it. Before we had captured the base NC had got reinforcements and the base popped up to 48 enemies and a more equal % between TR/NC but we were seriously still just 3 VS players doing this push. In total I think VS sat around 16% on the continent pop wich in turn translated into perhaps 10 players on the entire continent.

I redeployed to Indar because I know I can count on NC to give a decently balanced fight there with more or less equal give and take of bases.

I remember the TR on Woodman used to be underpop the same way the VS is on Miller, but they generally were devoid of any major organized outfits and possibly still are.

The two more popular VS outfits on Woodman these days (the tighter and more organized IP & the massive zergfit KOTV) seem to still be one step ahead of the competition (better tactics, more seasoned players), but even the old zergfits the TR had are catching up as the server seems to have a massive influx of newbies to recruit and attempt to direct into any objective. Neither, however, run any alliances like TRAM, TVA, NCTO, etc. and they all rely on command chat.

Keep in mind that Woodman is a smaller server than Miller and the skillcap is definitely lower. If I login during the morning I can easily get to #1 on the leaderboard with 200-300 kills, whereas on Miller I'd have to login at 6am UTC +1, play hardcore and get to a good 500 kills before 12pm to have any hopes of making it into the top 10. This could also possibly mean there is less Russian players over there, but that is a different story.

The TR players of Miller are on a general sense more skilled and still quite more organized than the VS of Woodman. The latter are not so hard to catch up to (they seem to specialize in fast response, but that is all they have) by the other two factions and the server seems to be devoid of any population problems, so the fights tend to be decided by who manages resources (facilities, territory, platoons, etc.) better.

The way I see it on Miller is: when the fights are an even 33% for all three factions, each of them has an honest chance to win. The tactics employed by the TR have become predictable, but the fact they bring 2x our numbers makes the surprise factor irrelevant. I've seen VS use certain tactics months before the TR caught up to them, yet they'd still win alerts.

Reality is: on Miller the major, gamebreaking problem is the population imbalance. Organization is far behind in the priorities when it comes to fixing the server's situation. When the TR finds themselves even with either of the other two factions or both, they have a hard time winning or even being second, which basically means we're about on the same organizational and skill level.

And this is the absolutely worst way - increasing the problems for everyone who stays

I play TR on miller, just logged on and it was another Indar alert (big surprise). I just took one look at the map and 'screw it, i'm done'. It's not even fun anymore. VS and NC, you think you are getting the bad end of the stick? At least you have something to shoot at. All I do is to play the waiting game, I've played for a few months now and it's all turned into The waiting game 2013.
Never mind that the game actually has no substance whatsoever, there's actually nothing to do anymore. Canceled sub, might check back in a few months and see if stuff has changed.

Yeah, and the so-called forth faction will just move onto wherever as they're not really tied to any particular character anyways.

What's missing is some sort of equalizer, which isn't just experience boosts but things that affect resources and the timers of vehicles. Nothing that affords more power but rather something that allows the underdogs to keep up on fighting.

The "problem" is miller is actually quite balanced when it comes down to individual skill level and outfit tactics of all factions- which is a very good thing !
I've seen Indar territory events with 33/33/33 pop which ended with nearly 33/33/33 territory which speaks for itself.
The problem is it totally breaks the balance once one faction (mostly TR - sometimes in the night VS/NC) hit a magic overpop marker @ which it is impossible to win given the sheer numbers and same skill level.
The saddest part is that players knowingly abuse this fact by overpopping the faction they asume is going to win the alert ( again this is mostly TR due to usual highest pop to begin with and constant forum propaganda like this thread..)
Which works and flips the balance totally to the winning faction - and even more ppl change - and so on.
Basically players create their own self-fulfilling prophecy.

I LoLed at the red part. For people who doesn't know what he actually means: Cheaters.

Edit: I just looked at Redzy's signature. I think it shows perfectly the "Faction Traits". "Accuracy" is for VS. (+No Bulletdrop is a good bonus.)

LOL, yeah I TOTALLY missed that. My bad.

After playing VS I can tell you they're on par with TR, at least infantry wise. TR holds a slight advantage with vehicles, so overall TR is stronger. There is no tuning needed for VS. NC on the other hand, is a disaster. Weaker overall, and noticeably so, in infantry and vehicles. The only way to make NC more enjoyable is to make them competitive. But this would require SOE to buff NC nearly across the boards, something they refuse to do. If you told me that the vast majority of devs hate NC, I wouldn't doubt it.

NC's design on infantry weapons as a whole is flawed, as their "higher" damage output is easily wiped out because RPM is key here in this game, and of course, VS and TR hold this advantage. The vehicle secondary weapons and the Reaver sucks. The Vanguard's shield is situational, at best, just like their MAX.

This isn't happening anytime soon though, as SOE has shown, they don't care about NC one bit. NC gets a strong weapon, nerfed within days. VS, a bit longer. TR with a game breaking weapon, untouched for weeks/months.

So, some intresting numbers on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/MillerPlane...mber_of_outfit_members_per_faction_on_miller/

It seems like the ammount of NC players in organized outfits is pretty much negligible.

Make an NC character to help alleviate the problem until SOE engage their collective grey matter for once.

And why should the losing factions be forced to stay, while the TR wins and zergs everything, bathes in certs and victories while the losers can't do anything?

You go make an NC/VS character and help solve this problem, oh wait, you won't, because all you bloody hypocrites want the victory more then the good fights you claim to love.

Actually it's not, if the TR/4th faction guys want to sit around for 2 hours they can do that, NC/VS will be busy actually playing on a balanced server where you can have fun and not be drowned by a TR zerg every time a alert goes off.

Playing on Miller as NC/VS is not fun and it's not competitive, 1 NC/VS vs 5 TR is not fun, it's a waste of time.

SOE need to have a look at the code for alerts, just left one that started 2 minutes ago on miller

Capture Amerish

TR controlled 60%+ of amerish and had a 5% global pop advantage before the alert, I'm wondering whether the alert will be 10 or 15 minutes long.

SOE try this piece of code

If empire's a, b or c's territory on y continent is equal to or greater than 50% cancel alert for said continent.

Accuracy stats are messed up on that and ironically, my alts have better ones. I am thinking of reverting back to PSU signatures.

This is my main's. My two alts: A & B.

Clearly there must be a mistake since the other two factions have da bullet dropz. Or maybe you're just wrong.

https://players.planetside2.com/#!/wds

This is just abysmally ********. Nothing else to say about it.

It wasn't enough giving XP to the overpop faction, now they need MORE REWARDS!

Seriously if this goes on that way, I will quit the game until transfers are made available and my subscription will be cancelled.

looks like two more people in my outfit dropped ps2 tonight, i assume they saw the world leadership scores for miller and thought its only gonna get worse. Cant see myself sticking around for TRSide too much longer either.

I didn't really understood that. Do they give everybody a 3 day XP booster for free or what?

just the TR

The winning faction, each week.

So despite having overpopulation, they actually get 3/7*50% = 21.4% exp bonus. Assuming they play every day that is. They get to choose when to apply the +50% so they can focus it on a weekend for example.

--

Also, logged in for my "passive" certs, checked world pop on Miller. I've grown accustomed to seeing it around the 40-42% mark at this morning hour. Now with the pre-season going on, it was 22/49/27. At this point, TR can actually fight both other factions and not lose, assuming NC and VS suddenly become incapable of perceiving or hurting each other.

It's probably only like 30 people online but still...

Also, does logging in to receive my passive certs on TR alt count as participating? I don't want to go and actually fight with it..