NC overpopulation and whats being done about it?

So NC has been the FOTM for a long while now and NC populations on every server are basically getting beyond a disease status is SOE going to do anything to make the NC pop lower or what?

It's incredibly boring to be confined to 2v2 battles because as soon as the NC realises they cannot win a fight they send their 50+ man blob to take a base with 2 people.

LOL. The 2 servers I play on both have massive VS overpops 95% of my playtime.

Sorry if my tiny violin won't play for you.

Do you people even think at all outside of your personal experiences? You know try to see things from all sides? I do I just assumed that people would like to do that and make sure they have all the facts because it keeps you from being STUPID.

I don't say that it's false what you are saying, maybe whole NC pop on all servers together increased BUT it still depends on which daytime it is.

I'm playing on Miller and what I can see is that TR has world pop from like 10-16/17 CET. Then NC pop is increasing so we have higher or often the same pop then TR. And as soon its getting late the VS are coming (Maybe different alien time zones, I dont know...) Im talking about the CET so maybe the daytimes are different for each country.

Populations change the whole time. Live with it.

The NC pop is the reason I joined VS, it isn't any fun playing on such a bloated faction.

Everyone must know the NC pop needs to be fixed, I just wish a few more players would jump ship like myself as it seems SOE don't have any way on balancing populations.

I do love all the extra targets though

As I type:

Connery : VS 39% .. TR 27% .. NC 37%
Miller : VS 27% .. TR 42% .. NC 31%
Mattherson : VS 31% .. TR 32% .. NC 37%
Waterson : VS 32% .. TR 41% .. NC 27%

I can't comment on other servers since I don't have char's on them .. It really is time and server dependent and any " tweaks " to curb the issue at one time or one server have the danger of impacting on another ..

If SOE were to do something about balance they would have to base it on prime time populations. Off hours will have distorted pops and also because there are fewer players the pops change much more easily due to the small size

Waterson for example last night when I as playing NC 38%.. TR 38%.. VS.. 24%

Yesterday on Woodman, Vanu had the lowest pop, with TR highest. It changes the whole time. Populations are constantly changing and shifting around.

There's a couple of factors to consider.


1. NC overpop is still generally less (percentage-wise) than the worldwide population advantage the TR had between March and October 2013.

2. More people (in total) are playing PS2 than when the TR had that domination (quite a lot more, even on average it looks like nearly 50% more - especially at Prime Times).




So it is difficult to draw conclusions if 1000's of players simply weren't playing PS2 when the NC was underpowered.

It would also be a bit daft of SOE to reduce their playerbase back by 50%.



However strong server based population controls are definately needed.

Something that happens often prime time Connery .. VS and NC are pretty close to equal pops ( 4 or 5% here of there isn't over pop ) while TR lag in 3rd with less than 30% ..

So how do you balance it ? You can't " buff " X faction because they are low on one server while they might have the pop advantage on other .. And any buffs or nerfs tend not to fix the issue but to move it to another faction ..

The only way it can be fixed is to add more incentives for playing the under dogs .. Then at least it would be tailored to a specific servers balance issues.

And how can that be done, more xp or a higher resource gain for underpop? I don't know how much of an impact that would actually have

SOE have said they don't want to punish over populated factions so a reduction on their end is not going to happen

This is what they need (and have for a long time now).

Balance is about as good as it has ever been, certainly they could have some flavour changes (although the worry with that is those changes resetting balance for those items), but general faction balance-wise it's pretty good as things stand (although obviously not perfect).

Personally (and I know SOE have said they won't do this), I think that when a server population gets to above 45% then carrots begin to fail and it is time for the stick instead.

Warhammer Online had a very effective mechanic for a while, that let an overpopped faction win and get to a city seige once, then twice (but a bit harder), but by the third time in row it was very hard, and then 4 times in a row was nearly impossible almost no matter what overpop the faction had (it then reset after 24 hours).

Having said that I still think underdog bonuses are a bit weak.

Oh please. Ceres having 37% NC at primetime doesnt make NC FOTM.

And [BKNE] arent known for thier tactical sense. Or realative level of skill. They probably had a fair bit of trouble dealing with those two people at the biolab.

Regardless of the population levels, NC on Miller has been struggling as of late. Esamir is the only place the NC generally holds more than 40% territory, and that's only because most of the time it's a ghost cap. On Indar & Amerish the NC has been struggling to move more than a couple of hexes beyond the warp gate.

Depends really on how much bonus is added .. The current bonuses are pitiful in the larger scheme of XP gain ..

Maybe the XP gain should be doubled or tripled for now ( Until the resource revamp )
Maybe the under pop faction should get a reduction in the resources it cost to use / pull an item / vehicle.
Maybe the resource revamp ( when it happens ) will help stem the over pop zergs

A lot of maybes but as we have seen in the past the only certain thing is that Global buffs or nerfs don't solve server specific issues

Imo. This game should've been FPSMMO, not MMOFPS. That would help solve some problems. Issue is, there are still generally more NC, than other factions, but on average (didn't count) it's not that much.

"I don't always have the advantage! Fix it SoE!"

Well, on Mattherson, we NC solve the problem by still getting rolled even with pop advantages. I'm NC hardcore and love the faction and Mattherson but holy Vanu's ballsweat, do we do less with more than anybody else. It varies by server, some are NC dominant and some (like Mattherson) are VS-dominant. The only consistent thing seems to be TR being a bit underpopulated on most servers.

I love how furiously the NC here are defending their FOTM status while being the self same forumside martyr soapbox warriors that were foremost on the "omg TR/VS OP/overpop" barricades.