I've been playing all 3 factions for a long time and while the lemming farming mentality is pretty bad on all 3 it is by far the worst on NC. It takes the slightest hint of a big fight, even at the worst bases from the worst positions, to lock up a sizable % of their population in the name of a "farm". Every time I take a break and come back there seem to be more of the lemmings and less of the actual strategic players. The pop has been dropping for a long time but I can tell you that part of what keeps making me leave is the mindlessness of the farm mentality. Seriously, you're killing the game via your boring farms locking up pop so by the time you're done "farming" the game will be mostly dead and all the farming you did will really be the only bit of the actual game you get to play. These extremely boring strategically barren fights eventually get cut off and then you spend the next hour or more trying to battle out of your WG. NC throws a lot of continent locks before they even start this way by getting WG'd before the alert and then not being able to push out far enough to escape 3rd place. Stupid in the extreme. A big fight doesn't mean a good fight.
Besides that I think you are suffering from bias, have you considered the option that farms might give the best gsmeplay value for a lot of people BECAUSE they thought about it? A "farm" is basically the most fair fight you can find on a map. The combination of population and base layout allow both sides a solid chance to stay there rather than be pushed away and having to fight losing battles/win everything and form a zerg. These fights also offer the most stragetic value compared to any other fight, shown by how hard it is to actually break these fights open and how stragetic you have to be to do it. Basically since PS2 is about big fights and what these particular big fights offer makes them good. The game simply lacks the goals and tools to get the most out of it for players. A continent capture is fine but we see VS and TR do just as much biolab scrounging because while a continent capture is fine your stats are more permanent. The prominence and lack of real other stats to compete with it encourages infantry farms. Why take higher risks to hunt down dozens of vehicles if the driver always jumps out and some MAX at a chokepoint can get a much higher KD and be lauded more for a lower risk effort? I've said it before but we need more variety in capture mechanics. We need small secondary goals to complete preferably in the form of deployables that can be defended and hunted down by other players so bases are a constantly shifting battlefield and players can watch stat counters other than KD. We need better tools to teamplay, starting with the basics of "two players meet and they can complement each other", rather than the current "two players happen to fight next to each other and compete for the same kill". We need a better map system so Situational Awareness is higher, we need nore visual data rather than voice chat to relay information and allow players to quickly see past and present data while filtering irrelevant data to them etc. Or you can complain that its the players fault for the game not having much depth but still being the only game that scratches that "massive battle" itch.
NC == stupid Then again, what else can you expect from guys that believe they fight for "freedom" under the orders of large corporations?
I play in all the factions. Biolabs are magnets for everybody, because people are attracted by farming and killing easily far more than [possibly] winning an alarm. Don't blame the people, blame DBG for the game design and the KDR cult.
The game is running around shooting each other. Everything else is a mechanic to facilitate this. Capture points are were we go not because we care about a capture point, but because there will be someone there we can shoot. The larger leadership metagame is just arranging more of you than them at that capture point. That metagame is just kinda broke because we as players all asked for it to be easy. There are no large overground fights between bases because you can just direct spawn in where you wish. At worst.... at worst!! you have to redeploy directly to an aircraft that flies you there. The leader that outplays his opponent has all his advantages negated because someone he outsmarted all the way across the map can rush in and nullify his gains.
