Simple way to balance faction population

Here is a simple balance model that effectively solves the issues of faction overpopulation or two factions teaming up against one for no apparent reason:

Each faction has two fronts. If you are NC player and you get assigned to VS front it means you will only be able to earn XP while fighting against VS. Killing TR or capturing TR bases won't give you any XP at all.

Having 50% or more of single faction on one continent situation should be prevented using current continental queues but with this added rule.

Gist of the idea is that total number of players fighting against faction X should never exceed number of players present in faction X.

I don't know how to formulate this mathematically but here is an example of how to assign players to fronts so that no faction ever gets outnumbered:

Indar population:
VS: 250
NC: 350
TR: 400

VS and NC attacking TR = 400
VS and NC attacking each other = VS + NC - 400 = 200

There will be 200 players on NC/VS front which means that NC faction will assign 100 to that front and VS will also assign 100 to that front.

NC will have left 350-100=250 players to fight the TR, VS will have 250-100=150 players assigned to fight the TR. Total number of players attacking the TR = 400.

Despite the fact that TR has 40% population, none of the factions will ever get outnumbered on continental level.

Players would be assigned to front automatically upon login, but they should be able to send request to switch fronts in which case they would wait in queue similarly as when trying to enter a full continent.

Squad recruitment would need tweaking. Players would only be able to join a squad if they are assigned to same front as the squad leader.

Squad/platoon leader should be given option to request front reassignment on squad/platoon level. In that case entire squad gets in queue and they should have priority over lone players trying to change fronts.

That suggestion would effectively destroy three ways fights.

No.

Cont locks!
Suddenly, 33% vs 33% vs 33% fights

I hate balance. God-AWFUL boring.

Let the population balance ebb and flow alone. Find a good platoon, suck it up, and figure out how to be successful locally as opposed to globally.

Destroys the whole point of the game (rvrVR), is akin to game-sanctioned alliances which sucks, incorrectly balanced (in your example, VS committing 150 people to the fight vs TR whilst NC commit 250 means NC will inevitably be getting more territory if the attack proves successful), and most importantly:

Completely destroys outfit play, the most important aspect of developing any kind of sustainable metagame.

Horrific idea that will neither work nor encourage more players.

Probably the first thing I've ever seen you say that I agree with any part of. High five!

So, I get in from work, there's an alert on Amerish. I take leadership of the outfit platoon, and we relocate to Amerish. Every one of my players sits in a queue, forcing a downtime not only on everyone waiting on Esamir/Indar, but now everyone who's arrived on Amerish, because moving out whilst we're still getting a slow reinforcement of troops is stupid and a waste of resources. So, fortunately owing to other faction's platoons heading for Amerish, we're not all stood around waiting for too long.

I've now got two full squads on Amerish and we get to it. Problem is, I get in from work before most of my outfit. So as everyone gets in from a hard day's work and wants to get their head in the game, they can't. What they can do is ask for a platoon invite and sit in the incredibly restrictive queue for Amerish. This queue will be exceedingly turbulent as it's relying on six-way movement (three factions, players queuing and players leaving), so predictions for access will be way out, and already everyone's a bit pissed off.

But now let's look at the knock-on effect. We're a small server, and we barely pop cap one continent during an alert. So what's happening, is gradually we're homeorhetically moving towards 600v600v600 on Amerish. In the meantime, Esamir's been abandoned by varying amounts of players. The population imbalance means more of Faction B's players disappeared to start with as they log onto their Faction C alts for easy wins, and those that don't head for Amerish. So what we've now got is a high pop on Esamir, so we're locked out. This forces all new logins for my Faction A to be on Indar. Except ****, we can't, because Indar's pop is tiny, comparatively speaking, so it's almost always locking us out as Faction B and C keep logging in on Esamir to balance the population. So now all of the players that ought to enjoying an evening of PS2 with their mates are instead sitting in a queue through no fault of their own, with no way to get involved in any meaningful combat.

I can really see people loving sitting in those queues enjoying the satisfaction of a game that ensures the populations are balanced for those lucky few that get in from work 30 minutes earlier than them...

So yeah. It's a terrible idea.

Also, what's wrong with taking advantage of a **** situation? If TR have the pop to steamroll a particular objective on Esamir for points, why shouldn't we, with our low pop, use the opportunity to give ourselves a headstart on the Amerish cap? Putting in mechanisms that force so-called 'fair fights' actually just results in huge amounts of queuing, and the total removal of any strategic planning etc.





And to finally come back to the OP's point, your solution doesn't address it. If populations are 33v33v33, what's to stop Faction A and B spending the whole night beating on Faction C?

People think they're giving smart, simple solutions, but in the end they're just stating simplistic ones.

What is so special about 3way fights that it makes population balancing not worth it?

In my experience whenever 3way fight happens something along this lines appears in yell chat "go away faction X, nobody wants you"

Boring?!?

Would a football match in which half of the team's players are missing be more fun to watch than a match in which both teams have equal chances of winning? Seriously how can a fight with uncertain outcome be boring?

Touche.

Thanks for feedback.

I don't mind being the underdog and trying to come up with ways around problems. That's how it is most days on Woodman.....who wants an equal fight every time nah not me...................getting together with other outfits to hit a certain location is half the fun when your outnumbered.

perfect balance = boring stalemates..................................

Make each player their own faction. 100% balance.

Football and MMOFPS can't be compared.

Yes, the best uncertain outcome is when the underpop team wins.

Don't listen to this guy, he's a well known troll in these forums. He thinks being 80% of the pop is having skills.

You can still bring overwhelming force to capture the base but then you will have to make one of your bases exposed.

Point is to balance the total number of players fighting on the front, not players fighting in particular base.

Compare it to CoD and Battlefield then. Both have forced team balance.

Can't. I outgrew red vs blue before they came out, and never looked back.

Klondik3 I have to agree with the other guys in saying I wouldn't like to see balance come in the way of locking numbers evenly or into a way of playing. That's what sets this game apart from most FPS games.

From your solution I do see an idea that would be cool to have random mini alerts sent out to factions with temporary incentive like take a VS territory etc. This could provide a goal for players that can be attainable if you happened to play at a time when you are heavily out numbered.

Sure it's possible and a lot of fun to think of a strategy to take down the larger force, at it's core that's the point of this game to some extent. I think most of us can agree the issue lies when you really can't do much in an alert after a certain point of population shift due to the mechanics of base capture.

I mentioned in another thread the idea of adding bonuses to the alert, like say capture a a territory unrelated to the main alert goal. That way when the population is heavily uneven. At least the outnumbered players have a chance in taking the bonus goal. When the numbers are more even it even adds another element of strategic decisions of where to send forces for everyone.

I think a a combination somewhere between the two of our suggestions could be cool. Imagine the outnumbered faction is suddenly assigned a task of stealing a certain territory for say a bounty reward part way through the alert.