Number of Factions

What would Planetside 2 play like if there were more or less factions? For example, 2 factions would be similar to a Battlefield match.

Thoughts?

Also, I sense the "fourth faction" comments are coming.

great post

It doesnt really matter how many factions are ingame as people gravitate towards attacking a single side at a time.
We dont have three way fights right now, so why bother with more sides.

Also, just a disclaimer. I'm not suggesting anything, just curious as to how you guys would imagine said scenario. It'd be too tedious to create an entire new faction complete with their own new characteristics and implement it into the game in its current status.

Most three way fights end up turning into an exercise in frustration, where 2 sides fight each other while the defenders brag about how awesome they are in the middle.

Perhaps two would be the best number for a team-based first person shooter? There being three factions certainly is a redeeming factor for this game, since you can choose to fight a different kind of opponent, and play as one, though the difference are only minor in most cases. Then again, there would be criticism that Sony Online Entertainment is just copying off the concept of Battlefield if it follows the traditional two teams competition.

Only two factions would literally mean one or the other will be warpgated. Population balance is a unachievable goal, but best done with 3 or more factions to spread out the population.

As bad as the imbalances are now, one side cannot easily dominate the other two. When you warpgate one faction, the other starts creeping up on you, forcing you to reallocate. And this is when one side has more than 50% of the pop. When populations get more even, then this is even more dynamic.

With only two factions. If one side has even a 10% advantage, then its just a fight at the underdog's warpgate. It only ever works in the BF games because both sides are 32vs32, even. Not 1000vs800vs700

On Miller there is
TR
NC
VS
[DIG]
alertswitchers are therefor fifth faction

Ah you're right. Would that mean the more the merrier? Why would 3 be the optimal number and not 4 or 5?

So if we get a 4th faction, that would make the 4th faction the 5th faction, and the north faction the 6th faction right?

Indeed. One thing to note is that the term "4th faction" would supposedly lose its meaning though, since no one refers to TR as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd faction, right? It would become as ambiguous as the word "literally," with its current textbook definition.

Well if we add a fourth faction....

...waaaiiiit...

well thats due to all three of them starting to exist at the same time, a new introduced faction would forever be called tbhe fourth faction, caused by the fact that you would have to switch faction to play it => 4 factioneering

It would play like planetside 2 - with 2 factions... Most fights are 2v2 faction fights anyway. 3 ways do happen but they are usually stale clusterderps that result in (tower) cap. points stuck in each their own faction color and the cap. timer going nowhere, fast...

With the current maps, I think 3 is the magic number. And that is just due to map design. But as you add more factions, you get diminishing returns on what each one could accomplish. Or maybe not. But one thing is for certain, how do you make them different enough from one another? Treading into its probably best to make a new game/franchise territory by that point.

Honestly, I find those to be the most entertaining. You can to disrupt another faction's attack or defense while you make your own impact. Also, with 3 factions, the population in said areas are high in number, making it a much conflicted battle, allowing for a far greater amount of combat, a characteristic that is lacking in other bases, at least on Briggs.

It wouldn't be necessary to create entirely new concepts for a new faction, seeing your faction is the only one noticeably different from the other two. It is also due to these differences that balancing fixes are called for, since the greater the disparity in characteristics, the greater the discrepancy between how well each of these groups performs in combat.

Just noticed, my apologies for double posting.

I red WAR had complaints on only having 2 factions because 1 can easily get more powerful which changes the balance. If you have 3 then this is less of an issue since the 2 smaller can gang up on the one big.

With how well the NC were implemented there might as well be only 2 factions ... or from what I am finding, if you have the lowest pop faction on a server, the players there will still moan and groan like they have it anywhere near as SNAFU as NC.

Actually it does matter in several ways.

3 way faction fights often times will allow 2 smaller factions to occasionally team up against one larger more dominating faction. The same setting was applied in DAOC and it often worked phenomenally for us. By us I mean us in midgard, the red headed bastard children of DAOC, and Hibernia, against Albion forces who regularly outnumbered us at least 3 to 1.
By calling a temporary truce the 2 smaller factions can focus on the larger faction and force them to split up their numbers. If they don't split their numbers up to fight 2 fronts, one of the factions can easily wreak havoc behind lines. We've seen this be effective a few times on PS2 which has led to many a tears from the fat lazy overpop players who thought they were on the winning team because of numbers.

However, 2 faction warfare will simply fall into a tip the scales scenario. This was most notable in WAR. As I said above, players like to join sides with numbers because they equate numbers to winning. You see people ask all the time on the forums which faction has the most numbers where, because they want to add to those numbers and compound the problem.
The issue here is that there in only one other faction to pull from, so as one side grows, the other side starts to shrink, and the scales keep tipping a little more and a little more until one side is completely dominating and the game is no longer fun for anybody. In a open pvp scenario like WAR and PS2, it's inevitable.

So while 3 way fights in game can be fun though rare, the balance of 3 factions goes far beyond what is happening at that base. If we had only the 2 faction war with the lattice system it would simply be a game of numbers and the larger group will simply push you right into the WG with no hope of retaliation. You would have no <temporary> allies to rely on, and you would eventually get frustrated and leave.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend